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The simplest solution is also the best solution. Giving tanks more wounds and toughness solves nearly all of the issues. I would say give tanks 8 to 10 more wounds each. Instead of 10 to 14 wound tanks we would be looking at tanks with 18 to 24 wounds. Boosting toughness to 8, 10, or 12 would help against a lot of the mid-strength weapons that plague them. Boosting the wounds is the main thing they need. Nothing has to change with weapon profiles, and the tanks are more resilient to small arms and two damage weapons. Good rolls with anti-tank weapons can still knock out smaller tanks in one turn.

I will also chime in to say that the issue with Eradicators are their rules and not really their weapons.

That just pushes the problems onto super heavies.

How many wounds do we give Knights, Baneblades, and other 20+ wound T8 models? We are going to approach warhound levels here if we keep trickling down the line. If a Rhino should be 14, then a Russ/Pred should be at least 20, then a LR should be 26, and a Baneblade should be 35? A warhound is 50 right?

Sadly; I don't really see a solution. Fezzik makes a good point in getting outrageous wound counts that make you auto-lose all games UNLESS you stack tons of melta.

Honestly; vehicles and AT are (mostly) fine. Melta should probably be 18" granted; but the core issue is vehicles' cost. I don't run vehicles outside of Orks (especially as marines) for the very reason they just cost too much of my army.

This just seems like it's an unwinnable game-design issue in that people are trying to find ways to feel justified in spending 250-300+ points on a single model and not let it die fast. Not many paths to making that work; and if you did it, likely, still wouldn't be a good choice anyway.

Three 100pt units are going to be better in most cases for mission purposes; and you can double your opponents' score even being tabled turn 3 and he having half his army left /shrug

Makes sense to me. It would force people to bring true anti-tank weapons to deal with tanks rather than just relying on their huge amounts of mid-strength weapons to deal with literally everything in the game.

*Edit* You could also add an extra bracket to the tank so you can still reduce their offensive effectiveness at a similar rate.

Except that you're missing the point that all other AT will be inadequate compared to melta weapons. Thus they'll all need buffs.

Tanks are fine when you consider everything besides new melta. So it makes NO sense to buff tanks to make new melta not as deadly then also buff all other AT weapons to the new norm instead of bringing melta back down to earth.

 Mud Turkey 13 wrote:
The simplest solution is also the best solution...

Oh, sure. I'm trying to point out that "simplest solution" != "solution that requires the least effort on the part of the design team". Fixing some of the baffling math errors they made in the 8e Indexes would be more difficult, but it'd fix the problem without needing to add an extra stack of rules/interactions on top of the existing game.

 Mud Turkey 13 wrote:
Makes sense to me. It would force people to bring true anti-tank weapons to deal with tanks rather than just relying on their huge amounts of mid-strength weapons to deal with literally everything in the game.

*Edit* You could also add an extra bracket to the tank so you can still reduce their offensive effectiveness at a similar rate.

I do like the idea of more harsh bracketing on tanks if we want to make them tougher. One issue is with how often they get "ignore DT" strats though.

I don't want to change too much, it's not that far out of whack if people are concerned so much about melta.

My suggestion, take out the current 1/2 range rule for melta. Instead, just allow the melta rule to kick in at 8" or less, period, regardless of weapon. Regular meltas still have range 12" but get better at 8". MM have 2 shots, extra range, but have to get really close to get max benefit.
This won't be popular, but I'd remove any additional bonuses for melta pistols. They just stay 6" range S8 -4 D6 damage with no benefits at 3". They just don't have the power to do more. Heck, they're 5pts.

Bitharne wrote:
Except that you're missing the point that all other AT will be inadequate compared to melta weapons. Thus they'll all need buffs.

Tanks are fine when you consider everything besides new melta. So it makes NO sense to buff tanks to make new melta not as deadly then also buff all other AT weapons to the new norm instead of bringing melta back down to earth.

But "bringing melta down to earth" will just take use back to prior editions when plasma was a better anti tank option, and melta was only seen on squads that could run multiples of it. A nerf to MM, with powerful inv save armies like harlis and demon soups running around, would still keep other single shot anti tank weapons bad. Making the game really unfun for everyone who has access to MM, but doesn't to mass plasma or cheap spamable lascannons.

I just want stuff that is supposed to be resistant to weaker weapons to stop getting rules that make them resistant to stronger weapons and do nothing against weak ones.

Disgustingly Resilient is the most egregious offender but there seems to be a growing number of cases with vehicles.

Fluff (literally written in the rule): "Those favored by Nurgle are inured to pain, their rotting bodies shrugging off all but the most traumatic damage with ease." Emphasis mine. But what's the actual rule? -1 dmg to a minimum of 1. It does literally nothing against the same small arms that it is supposedly granting resistance to, while offering a bonus against traumatic damage. That is absurd. The Nurgling version of a 5+ fnp against damage 1 would actually make sense. /rant

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I just want stuff that is supposed to be resistant to weaker weapons to stop getting rules that make them resistant to stronger weapons and do nothing against weak ones.

GW's inability to translate fluff to rules is nothing new, sadly.

One that always sticks out to me is the Venom Cannon from the 3rd Ed Tyranid Codex:

"Even vehicle armour can be penetrated by the crystals, leading to poisoned crew members and shattered equipment..."

... But VCs could only ever glance vehicles. They mention less lethality vs vehicles in the fluff, but for the 4th Ed Codex the sentence above just stops at "equipment", and again, they cannot actually penetrate.

 bullyboy wrote:
I don't want to change too much, it's not that far out of whack if people are concerned so much about melta.

My suggestion, take out the current 1/2 range rule for melta. Instead, just allow the melta rule to kick in at 8" or less, period, regardless of weapon. Regular meltas still have range 12" but get better at 8". MM have 2 shots, extra range, but have to get really close to get max benefit.
This won't be popular, but I'd remove any additional bonuses for melta pistols. They just stay 6" range S8 -4 D6 damage with no benefits at 3". They just don't have the power to do more. Heck, they're 5pts.

That would work. It would prevent multi-meltas and eradicators from being in melta range straight out of strategic reserves and deep strike, and require getting "danger close" to prospective targets. I'd still give infantry multi-meltas and eradicators a small points bump, about 5 points, just to make them a little less efficient outside of melta range.

But it still wouldn't fix the eradicators heavy melta rifles. Those things do the same damage at 24 as other melta weapons do at point blank. That goes against the whole concept of melta.

Maybe I am looking at this wrong, but isn't this whole discussion partly due to GW trying to streamline the rules I believe. Sure the armor facings of vehicles in previous editions surely had its own problems, but the mess we have now isn't arguably much better. Losing complexity maybe wasn't the best solution in overall game design
I'm not saying I have the perfect solution, but maybe throwing some of the complexities of previous editions completely over board was a mistake, maybe they could have refined some of the older rules that had issues without just removing them and limiting both infantry, monsters, vehicles and titanic units within a 1-10 toughness range (without ever using 9 and 10)

Just nerf the melta.

No need to change profiles or rules or anything.

This is a problem that was generated by a sudden spike in the performance of melta platforms. Nerf eradicator and MM and you are fine.

Spoletta wrote:
Just nerf the melta.

No need to change profiles or rules or anything.

This is a problem that was generated by a sudden spike in the performance of melta platforms. Nerf eradicator and MM and you are fine.

I agree with you but let’s not forget clown fusion pistols (maybe just limit the number of models who can take one).

This is all just the balance mambo of GW we are in. For awhile plasma was king, now we are in the age of the melta, don't worry it'll rotate back around again. Little will change and something else will end up over the top good.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
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).

This. Remove most of the force multipliers in the the game and price appropriately the few units that are clearly undercosted, or overcosted in the case of the Stompa. Done.

Melta weapons are now appropriate on the majority of the platforms that can carry them. Removing things like shooting twice or re-rolls for Eradicators or Retributors would be already a solid achievement. 40k worked well for many years without those mechanics.


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 AngryAngel80 wrote:
This is all just the balance mambo of GW we are in. For awhile plasma was king, now we are in the age of the melta, don't worry it'll rotate back around again. Little will change and something else will end up over the top good.

Plasma was problematic due to force multipliers as well. Plasma without re-rolls or any other tool to increase its lethality/efficiency wasn't really an issue.

TBF, the whole force multiplyer thing is an issue with stratagem design: which imo fall in 3 categories:

1: Good stratagems, often movement related, ambush type things, etc. Basically requiring more then 2 braincells.

2: Schould've been equipment / Upgrade: Aka stuff like "Red Butcher terminators" AA missiles, etc. Stuff which should have a pts cost to it and or be optional but with a price tag and not a stratagem. IG grenadiers don't just lose their memory to use nades defensifely when the squad to the left of them used theirs... Neither do other Red butchers loose their capability just because there's allready another squad of them...

3 Utter rubbish and harmfull: Stuff like cacophony and Votwl f.e.. These things alone have caused a shitton of unwarranted hikes in price for anyone not playing legions / slaanesh able formations. They have successfully crippled more units in the CSM dex alone because they enfoced a hike on units then anything else. Further, it's internally completelly ridicoulus, as in the khorne double fighting stratagem is more expensive then the double shooting stratagem so it doesn't even internally make sense...

 Blackie wrote:

Melta weapons are now appropriate on the majority of the platforms that can carry them. Removing things like shooting twice or re-rolls for Eradicators or Retributors would be already a solid achievement. 40k worked well for many years without those mechanics.

I don't see the shooting twice thing as a big deal. My MM armed Dev squad? Each of those MM can shoot twice. So what's it matter if these primaris guys with their melta-rifles can shoot twice IF they all shoot at the same target? Same range, same damage, same special melta rules....

Now if the Eradicators rule had been stated as a negative how many people do you think would complain?
Ex; "Lack of Focus": If the squad splits fire, each Eradicator may only fire once. {make up some bs fluff explanation about linked targeters etc as needed}

Now all these re-rolls to everything? Those need to go.

I think in terms of general survivability a system of damage reductions could potentially work quite well.

Rather than anti-tank weapons getting any inherent bonuses (outside of stratagems or whatever) they just do their damage listed on the datasheet. Nice and simple. Whereas if anything that isn't anti-tank (or lets just say Anti-Large because of Monsters? idk) shoots at that same target, it suffers a -1 to wound. Obviously some things would be exempt from this like lighter vehicles such as smaller ork buggies, Piranhas, Venoms, Starweavers etc (representing their lighter construction and exposed crew) and you could even play around with certain weapons ignoring the limitation even though they're not "technically" anti-tank (representing Gauss weaponries old rules for instance). Obviously this doesn't do much for Bolters shooting at LR's or Knights, but there's a lot of hyperbole from people who think that those units are honestly vulnerable to those weapons when the amount of bolter fire required to bring down either usually exceeds most of the shots being fired across all 5 turns. However it is going to make a difference to mass Heavy Bolter or Autocannon fire.

You could even take this further and hyper-solidify this system by giving those single shot anti-large weapons penalties for shooting at stuff like infantry. Because that's also an issue.

Stratagems, auras, traits, faction/deatchment abilities actually.

Bitharne wrote:
Except that you're missing the point that all other AT will be inadequate compared to melta weapons. Thus they'll all need buffs.

Tanks are fine when you consider everything besides new melta. So it makes NO sense to buff tanks to make new melta not as deadly then also buff all other AT weapons to the new norm instead of bringing melta back down to earth.

*buzzer*

I'm sorry, Bitharne, but we're going to have to stop you there - as has been pointed out previously, the main issue with AT weapons is the non-AT weapons that do their jobs better. Heck, with their recent boost to D2, Heavy Bolters - the archetypal anti-infantry weapon for most of the game - is often cited as a more reliable way to hurt vehicles that dedicated AT weapons.

There are certainly some dedicated AT weapons that need a thorough review - looking at you, Vanquisher Cannon - but the first step to resolving the paradigm is to stop the ease with which non-AT weapons defeat vehicles (and monsters, I guess). All other things being equal, boosting their W and/or T is the way to go there, unless you do want to start adding in more special rules to disadvantage weapons firing at enemy types they're not designed for.

Are some melta weapons now a bit over-tuned? Almost certainly, but incremental points increases until we hit a sweet spot is probably the best way to go with the traditional melta weapons. Eradicators definitely need looking at in more detail, though.

I know that many hate it, but Duty Eternal is the way to go. It should be a generic rule for all vehicles.

Reduces the effects of High RoF weapons while improving a bit the survivability of tanks against heavy AT weapons.

This doesn't mean though that the current melta is fine.

The problem with Duty Eternal rule being more widespread is that powerfists or thunderhammers needs a damage boost or to make chainfists more common. And equivalent weapons for other armies. I dont mind that most of the weaker weapons getting halved damage against vehicles but when the stronger ones does as well it is far more punishing then ranged d6 or d6+x weapons getting -1 damage.

Some armies rely on D2 or d3 weapons in melee to kill harder targets. With Duty Eternal rules the mid level special weapons become crap and the cheaper options perform as good.

Mid level strength, ap and damage weapons is only a real problem at range. You get 3 shots with the heavy bolter and 1 with the lascannon, yet the bolter is cheaper. In melee you get the same attacks with a Thunderhammer or a power sword but the thunderhammer is much more expensive. You more accurately pay for your melee capability on the melee weapons than on the ranged ones.

Having the -1 only work on ranged weapons could work, at least for some vehicles.

I would want more varied defensive profiles for bigger things. Like ++ or +++ saves that only work against either melee or ranged. Same with -1 to hit modifiers. Then you could have fast vehicles, like fliers, that are hard to hit with shooting due to -1 to hit and an invul save but if they get caught in melee they get hit normaly and only have a normal save. Or have vehicles with armor that have no real weaknesses up close and melee weapons just wont be able to penetrate deep enough to cause serious hurt but wont do much against concentrated energy from energy weapons at range.

The armor system did some of the above. Vehicles that were supposed to be weak against melee had weak rear armor while Land Raiders or Monoliths had 14 all around. Fast fliers that got stopped were practically dead etc.

Without the melta rules armies like SoB would have to switch to playing some wierd melee swarm build.

My dudes don't have melta, but melta being one of the few weapons that actualy does damage to monsters and HQ, outside of melee is nice. Not everyone can be eldar where the basic troop weapon is always some sort of anti tank/anti meq gun. Without a good efficient anti tank weapon what we would see was swarms of vehicles being run, and while it may not matter to some, a tank or monster heavy meta is not fun for armies that can deal with them.

Does melta even have to be AP4 at long range? Maybe it would be better to give it two completely distinct range profiles, not unlike the Seismic weapons.

Or how about make the multi-melta one-shot weapon again, with an option to blast both barrels but then skip the next turn entirely?

Ditto eradicators, let them shoot twice and then cool the weapons the next turn.


It's funny but as it is right now, I find the balance between the Tyranid AT guns (Impalers, HVCs) and the regular vehicles/monsters to be ideal in terms of lethality and enjoyment. They can kill a vehicle in a single turn on a lucky roll, but in general, several units have to focus fire in order to kill a vehicle.

Karol wrote:
Without the melta rules armies like SoB would have to switch to playing some wierd melee swarm build.

My dudes don't have melta, but melta being one of the few weapons that actualy does damage to monsters and HQ, outside of melee is nice. Not everyone can be eldar where the basic troop weapon is always some sort of anti tank/anti meq gun. Without a good efficient anti tank weapon what we would see was swarms of vehicles being run, and while it may not matter to some, a tank or monster heavy meta is not fun for armies that can deal with them.

it's not eldar that have basic Fusion pistols on everything , it's harlequins...
Not the same faction

Karol wrote:
Not everyone can be eldar where the basic troop weapon is always some sort of anti tank/anti meq gun.

???

Basic Eldar troop weapon is a shuriken catapult. I really wouldn't count it as anti-tank / anti-MEQ.

I feel there are quite a few different conversations bouncing around, so FWIW:

1. You can't fight anecdotes - or bad luck. But yes, shooting a knight with 20 bolters, and doing a wound or two doesn't strike me as the end of the world. Yes there will be times you get an abnormal number of wounds/failed saves, that's the nature of dice. There will be considerably more times when you get none. The idea tanks need to be even more resilient to these guns is lost on me.

2. Boosted up Marine shooting is impressive. But instead of sticking all those buffs on 200 points of intercessors, stick them on a single MM platform for a quarter or so of the points and you will see comparable results - while scoring about 33% more damage if in 12" range. Or just bring 2 MMs for half the points and don't worry about stacking 4~ buffs which is what people do in practice. I don't think doing 6 wounds on a vehicle when you have bags of buffs is all that exciting - and it doesn't reflect how Marines are killing vehicles right now.

3. I'm also not sure mid-range guns *are* a problem any more. The issues through 8th were that these guns - and really we are just talking Plasma/Disintegrators, despite experiments in autocannon spam - were comparably cheap while Lascannons and the equivalent were comparably expensive. For the most part this is no longer the case - and the absurd buffs to melta have firmly put them in the shade.

Something like Plasma Inceptors will remain an issue despite their 5 point increase - but this is because of the stupid blast rules, which mean you average 4 shots a model, but get a guaranteed 6 if your opponent's running "massive hordes" of 6+ model units. Which means they have exceptional firepower versus everything in the game. Even still, while there are countless mechanisms for dodging it, some consideration has to be made for killing yourself if you overcharge.

Heavy bolters are now worth firing - but the idea they represent a major threat to tanks is hard to square. Buffs, synergies etc - but on normal dice, you get 3 shots. With BS3 you'd expect 2 hits. Then you are looking at 5s to wound. Then the tank likely gets a 4+ save. You therefore expect to get through 0.666 wounds per heavy bolter.

When shooting a knight an MM does 2.35 times (1.55/0.66) as much damage - rising to 3.7 times in 12" range as a heavy bolter. Against a Predator the MM does 4.71 times as much damage - rising to a faintly absurd 7.4 times as much damage in 12".

So yes, you run into that IG carpark with 10 HBs and should now expect to take some chip damage. But there is no way its warping the meta to the point people are opting for HBs over the now clearly superior melta.

I also think in terms of points discussions, you have to consider the context of the whole platform, not the gun itself. So you can't really consider an MM as 20 points to a Lascannon's 15 because you have to pay for the 18 point guy holding the weapon too.

So right now - ignoring the limitations of the units - you get 6 Lascannon guys with 5 MM guys. If you wanted to get to a ratio of 5 Las to 3 MMs, an MM would need to be 37 (lets say 35) points a go. I.E a 15 point hike from where it is today. Which is huge - and I think indicates just how far out of whack they are.

I'm not really convinced Duty Eternal is a good idea, because it then doubles down on "you need melta to kill things". I am concerned the DG codex is going to lock in the melta meta - and those factions which don't have access to it will be further gatekeeped out. I mean should Dark/Bright Lances get 2 shots? Should Fusion Blasters? It sounds stupid, but that's the pandoras box that has been opened. Otherwise what, Lances to always 6 damage?

If only we'd had a system which made vehicles functionally immune to small arms, but more vulnerable to high strength dedicated anti-armour attacks.
If only we'd had that system for multiple editions until vehicles were made to be ffectively infantry with more wounds.
If only!