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 kirotheavenger wrote:
Predators, Hammerheads, Wave Serpents, etc, are T7.
A Repulsor is closer to a Landraider than a Rhino. The Primaris Rhino is the Impulsor which is... T7
So yeah, medium armour including APCs and MBTs are T7.
It's only really light stuff like Land Speeders which get T6.

Granted the cut off for T8 isn't much higher than the tanks listed above, with Leman Russes and Repulsors coming in at T8 (albeit with 3+ save still),

In really rough terms compared to old edition - AV10 = T6, AV11-13 = T7, AV14 = T8.

But the difference between those toughnesses is marginal at the moment. A lascannon wounds every single one on a 3+, a heavy bolter wounds them all on a 5+, they barely notice the difference between "super light vehicles" and "heavily armoured vehicles", it's just armour that counts and even that's not a big difference.
That's why we need to return to the old wounding system, the current one just doesn't suit the values of strength and toughness they've assigned.

IMO, lack of granularity in the game can be solved by foregoing the arbitrary T cap of 8. Heavy tanks should be T9, titans (if they shall must exist) at T10.

Then, if S = T/3 or less, weapon cannot wound. If S = 3T or greater, treat the damage as if they are mortal wounds (but they do not spill over like 'normal' mortal wounds). So, a lascannon can deal up to 6 mortal wounds against a single T3 model.

T10 means that it is never subject to any mortal wound conversion mechanic, and T9 now portrays more closely what shooting at pre-hull points old AV14 felt like.

S7 for autocannons is perfectly fine. Also, you don't want them to go to ap-2 as that would horrible in devastator doctrine.

Arguably, heavy bolter should be different. Say, 2d vs infantry and bikes and d1 vs vehiclea and monsters. That will skew the math in the right direction in terms of wounds vs T.

The last thing we want is to add *more* exceptions to rules!

Autocannon can be fixed somewhat more easily by making this S7/-2/2 weapon. I think that would push it back into competition with the heavy bolter -- but it would be a smidge more "I am shooting your light armor now" rather than "I am shooting your marines now" Marines "autocannon" are usually assault cannons, or something, ie, a different beast with different stats. They are S6/-1/1 and can stay as such, so no "nightmare" of dev doctrine need apply. Icarus autocannon are also different weapons -- they maybe sacrifice a bit of their power for accurate, lighter shooting shells fired up at aircraft. So no extra pen there, either.

A marine player may someday complain about not having better autocannons than gaurd on every model. and no doubt GW will graft an s9/-3/3 autocannon pistol3 that can fire twice on every eradicator and invictor, but whatever, man, till then, why should it matter one bit if the marines aren't the same as gaurd? Our autocannon ddon't shoot six times, their assault cannon aren't -2 ap. Fair? Hardly. But you can kill a lot more termagaunts with 6 shots of ap -1 than 2 of ap -2.

Don't touch its price -- its just being balanced for sucking, you don't have to raise the price of something that you are bringing back into line with the other weapons. If it performs about as well as a 10 point heavy bolter (just more pen, fewer shots, and more strength) ... no need to touch price.

Why not just toss it on the ash heap? There are already proof that GW is hyper focusing it's units, and preventing "options" with primaris. You want Meltas, we have a specific unit with those. Plasma? A specific unit. Autocannons? A Specific unit. Even HBs have a specific unit now. And they are all special named weapons. What out there uses the Generic Autocannon? AM tanks, AM HW teams, and Baneblades.....Chaos troops have an AC but it's named right? All the FW model naughts have named ACs right? Why keep it around? The generic AC is a weapon without purpose now. Unless you give it the "suppression" bonus that the Primaris version gets, it's pointless.

I wish the lore had more clear defined "rules" about weapons being stronger than each other or having more range. Then we could create a super list for each weapons stats

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Why not just toss it on the ash heap? There are already proof that GW is hyper focusing it's units, and preventing "options" with primaris. You want Meltas, we have a specific unit with those. Plasma? A specific unit. Autocannons? A Specific unit. Even HBs have a specific unit now. And they are all special named weapons. What out there uses the Generic Autocannon? AM tanks, AM HW teams, and Baneblades.....Chaos troops have an AC but it's named right? All the FW model naughts have named ACs right? Why keep it around? The generic AC is a weapon without purpose now. Unless you give it the "suppression" bonus that the Primaris version gets, it's pointless.

"Autocannons are useless because only the Guard uses them anyway", excuse me what? The Guard have a right to proper weapons too.

It's not just Guard anyway - it's also Chaos Marines (Repaer Autocannons are only on Terminators, Defilers and a few other FW units, Chaincannons are included as an option alongside regular Autocannons), arguabley Loyalist Marines (Predator Autocannon is still techncially a type of Autocannon) and Genestealer Cults (I'm fairly certain Brood Brother units can have Autocannons) at the very least.

And why shouldn't they exist? They're a fairly iconic Imperial Weapon and it's only realatively recently that they've become wholey overshadowed by everything else.

Brood Brothers are literally just Imperial Guard though aren't they?
I do agree that they're an iconic weapon and the direction Primaris are headed should be avoided, not embraced.

Yeah, they are pretty much just IG (just with a more restricted weapon pool because BB-approved the boxes don't come with all the weapons the equivalent IG units have access too).

I bring them up both for completion and because the boxs/units that are used for Brood Bothers infantry/heavy teams now used to be treated as alternate options for Neophytes in 7th. So Neophytes used to be able to have Autocannons, too.

I thought Brood Brothers literally let you bring an Imperial Guard detachment with 'Brood Brothers' as the regiment. Is that not the case?

It's weird. You can do that (replacing <Regiment> with Brood Brothers), but the codex also included several datasheets of Brood Brother units that can be included in a Genestealer Cult detachment and have Cult Ambush. However, the Brood Borther Infantry Squad at the very least has a watered down selection of options - the unit leader has no weapon options at all and the only special weapons they can use are the flamer or grenade launcher.

Guard are the only ones who don't have a special snowflake named version of the weapon. That's what I was implying. Reaper and chaincannons can be easily altered stat wise, and call it the same thing. But if you alter the generic plain 2% milk version of the AC, it's no longer an AC. And the only faction that would affect is the Guard, as I understand it.

And if a crappy weapon only exists for one single faction, why not take the next step and just drop it? Give them a new HW platform, call it the Executor Auto-cannon, keep the same model, but make it S7 that has two profiles: wounds infantry on a 2+ (Manstopper rounds) or wounds T7+ on a 3+ (Armor Piercing) and make the points higher to offset. Right now it's completely worthless, statistically and fluff wise. It has no purpose. It's worse than literally all the other HW options, because It's stuck on it's same old worthless profile designed before the whole Primarising of the entire universe, where everything became special and separate. The guard are left without any updates, still using HH era weapons.

The absolute last thing we need is MORE special snowflake weapons with special snowflake abilities.

Fluffwise the autocannon has a very definite niche compared to a heavy bolter, it has lower RoF but more powerful.
The problem is GW has kept the autocannon's rules the same, whilst moving everything around it to the point it's no longer relevant. S7 is hardly better than S5 at wounding anything, and now heavy bolters do 3 damage as well.

The solution to it's profile now being naff is to make it not naff. Not to scrap and weapon and replace it with a new one for no other reason than giving it an annoyingly ostentatious name.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Guard are the only ones who don't have a special snowflake named version of the weapon. That's what I was implying. Reaper and chaincannons can be easily altered stat wise, and call it the same thing. But if you alter the generic plain 2% milk version of the AC, it's no longer an AC. And the only faction that would affect is the Guard, as I understand it.

And if a crappy weapon only exists for one single faction, why not take the next step and just drop it? Give them a new HW platform, call it the Executor Auto-cannon, keep the same model, but make it S7 that has two profiles: wounds infantry on a 2+ (Manstopper rounds) or wounds T7+ on a 3+ (Armor Piercing) and make the points higher to offset. Right now it's completely worthless, statistically and fluff wise. It has no purpose. It's worse than literally all the other HW options, because It's stuck on it's same old worthless profile designed before the whole Primarising of the entire universe, where everything became special and separate. The guard are left without any updates, still using HH era weapons.

Leman Russ Exterminators have their own unique Autocannon.
Regular Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Chosen, Chaos Havoc and various GSC Brood Brothers units (that are in the codex and not just allied Guard) have regular Autocannons. It isn't just Imperial Guard that use them.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Guard are the only ones who don't have a special snowflake named version of the weapon. That's what I was implying. Reaper and chaincannons can be easily altered stat wise, and call it the same thing. But if you alter the generic plain 2% milk version of the AC, it's no longer an AC. And the only faction that would affect is the Guard, as I understand it.

And if a crappy weapon only exists for one single faction, why not take the next step and just drop it? Give them a new HW platform, call it the Executor Auto-cannon, keep the same model, but make it S7 that has two profiles: wounds infantry on a 2+ (Manstopper rounds) or wounds T7+ on a 3+ (Armor Piercing) and make the points higher to offset. Right now it's completely worthless, statistically and fluff wise. It has no purpose. It's worse than literally all the other HW options, because It's stuck on it's same old worthless profile designed before the whole Primarising of the entire universe, where everything became special and separate. The guard are left without any updates, still using HH era weapons.

Leman Russ Exterminators have their own unique Autocannon.
Regular Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Chosen, Chaos Havoc and various GSC Brood Brothers units (that are in the codex and not just allied Guard) have regular Autocannons. It isn't just Imperial Guard that use them.

Thank you for checking me on that. I thought all the ACs on the Chaos side were special named ones. I stand corrected.

Again, if we give the base AC More S, it's too powerful. More D it's too powerful. AP is practically useless these days, but I do like giving base ACs in Guard HWTs an Ability that goes something like "Spotter" The second man in this unit can spot and call out targets of value. when the unit first loses a model, lose this ability. (Grant +1 to shooting, or to Wound, or give it character targeting).

Then the Guard AC becomes useful in the one unit it's likely to see action, (Does anyone actually run AC Sentinels?) and it doesn't make affect the Chaos boys, but does synergize with the Brood brothers.

I just checked, the Havoks have a special named version, the Reaper chain cannon.

Why not D3? That would be impactful in a metagame with DG and Gravis units, while not stepping on the toes of the Heavy Bolter, and also making it more efficient vs Vehicles/Monsters.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Guard are the only ones who don't have a special snowflake named version of the weapon. That's what I was implying. Reaper and chaincannons can be easily altered stat wise, and call it the same thing. But if you alter the generic plain 2% milk version of the AC, it's no longer an AC. And the only faction that would affect is the Guard, as I understand it.

And if a crappy weapon only exists for one single faction, why not take the next step and just drop it? Give them a new HW platform, call it the Executor Auto-cannon, keep the same model, but make it S7 that has two profiles: wounds infantry on a 2+ (Manstopper rounds) or wounds T7+ on a 3+ (Armor Piercing) and make the points higher to offset. Right now it's completely worthless, statistically and fluff wise. It has no purpose. It's worse than literally all the other HW options, because It's stuck on it's same old worthless profile designed before the whole Primarising of the entire universe, where everything became special and separate. The guard are left without any updates, still using HH era weapons.

Leman Russ Exterminators have their own unique Autocannon.
Regular Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Chosen, Chaos Havoc and various GSC Brood Brothers units (that are in the codex and not just allied Guard) have regular Autocannons. It isn't just Imperial Guard that use them.

Thank you for checking me on that. I thought all the ACs on the Chaos side were special named ones. I stand corrected.

Again, if we give the base AC More S, it's too powerful. More D it's too powerful. AP is practically useless these days, but I do like giving base ACs in Guard HWTs an Ability that goes something like "Spotter" The second man in this unit can spot and call out targets of value. when the unit first loses a model, lose this ability. (Grant +1 to shooting, or to Wound, or give it character targeting).

Then the Guard AC becomes useful in the one unit it's likely to see action, (Does anyone actually run AC Sentinels?) and it doesn't make affect the Chaos boys, but does synergize with the Brood brothers.

I just checked, the Havoks have a special named version, the Reaper chain cannon.

Havocs have both the regular Autocannon and the Chaincannon (same for Chosen and regular CSMs)

But yeah, it's a hard thing to balance with the current To Wound chart. It's almost as if they shouldn't have changed it to start with lol

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Guard are the only ones who don't have a special snowflake named version of the weapon. That's what I was implying. Reaper and chaincannons can be easily altered stat wise, and call it the same thing. But if you alter the generic plain 2% milk version of the AC, it's no longer an AC. And the only faction that would affect is the Guard, as I understand it.

And if a crappy weapon only exists for one single faction, why not take the next step and just drop it? Give them a new HW platform, call it the Executor Auto-cannon, keep the same model, but make it S7 that has two profiles: wounds infantry on a 2+ (Manstopper rounds) or wounds T7+ on a 3+ (Armor Piercing) and make the points higher to offset. Right now it's completely worthless, statistically and fluff wise. It has no purpose. It's worse than literally all the other HW options, because It's stuck on it's same old worthless profile designed before the whole Primarising of the entire universe, where everything became special and separate. The guard are left without any updates, still using HH era weapons.

Leman Russ Exterminators have their own unique Autocannon.
Regular Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Chosen, Chaos Havoc and various GSC Brood Brothers units (that are in the codex and not just allied Guard) have regular Autocannons. It isn't just Imperial Guard that use them.

Thank you for checking me on that. I thought all the ACs on the Chaos side were special named ones. I stand corrected.

Again, if we give the base AC More S, it's too powerful. More D it's too powerful. AP is practically useless these days, but I do like giving base ACs in Guard HWTs an Ability that goes something like "Spotter" The second man in this unit can spot and call out targets of value. when the unit first loses a model, lose this ability. (Grant +1 to shooting, or to Wound, or give it character targeting).

Then the Guard AC becomes useful in the one unit it's likely to see action, (Does anyone actually run AC Sentinels?) and it doesn't make affect the Chaos boys, but does synergize with the Brood brothers.

I just checked, the Havoks have a special named version, the Reaper chain cannon.

In what world are you in that a S8 Autocannon would be "too powerful" LOL

 kirotheavenger wrote:
The absolute last thing we need is MORE special snowflake weapons with special snowflake abilities.

Fluffwise the autocannon has a very definite niche compared to a heavy bolter, it has lower RoF but more powerful.
The problem is GW has kept the autocannon's rules the same, whilst moving everything around it to the point it's no longer relevant. S7 is hardly better than S5 at wounding anything, and now heavy bolters do 3 damage as well.

The solution to it's profile now being naff is to make it not naff. Not to scrap and weapon and replace it with a new one for no other reason than giving it an annoyingly ostentatious name.

S7 is 50% better against T7, 100% against T6, those are the two most common vehicle Toughness values in the game. D2 heavy bolters was a mistake, they were never meant to be anti-vehicle or anti-Marine.

 vict0988 wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
The absolute last thing we need is MORE special snowflake weapons with special snowflake abilities.

Fluffwise the autocannon has a very definite niche compared to a heavy bolter, it has lower RoF but more powerful.
The problem is GW has kept the autocannon's rules the same, whilst moving everything around it to the point it's no longer relevant. S7 is hardly better than S5 at wounding anything, and now heavy bolters do 3 damage as well.

The solution to it's profile now being naff is to make it not naff. Not to scrap and weapon and replace it with a new one for no other reason than giving it an annoyingly ostentatious name.

S7 is 50% better against T7, 100% against T6, those are the two most common vehicle Toughness values in the game. D2 heavy bolters was a mistake, they were never meant to be anti-vehicle or anti-Marine.

Erm... Maybe it's just me, but T7 and T8 are the common vehicle values. T6 is pretty rare.

And the only time an Autocannon outperforms a Heavy Bolter is against T6. At literally every other Toughness value, a Heavy Bolter does at least the same damage (on average), if not more.

D3 would make sense as the simplest change. The Predator Autocannon (which used to just be a standard one) is D3 already.

The biggest problem I see with making the AC T8 is now it's threatening big scary t8 stuff, which is a major problem. This edition is already WAY too killy as is. If a HWS cost 50 points with 3 ACs, if it goes up to 20 per gun, then sure.

So we would then be talking (With the changes listed here) 50 points per 6n shots at S8 AP2 DD3. You are now threatening entire squads of DG, for 50 points. Not gonna lie, that seems a scooch too killy for the cost.

Not to mention you are now making Lascannons practically irrelevant.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
The biggest problem I see with making the AC T8 is now it's threatening big scary t8 stuff, which is a major problem. This edition is already WAY too killy as is. If a HWS cost 50 points with 3 ACs, if it goes up to 20 per gun, then sure.

So we would then be talking (With the changes listed here) 50 points per 6n shots at S8 AP2 DD3. You are now threatening entire squads of DG, for 50 points. Not gonna lie, that seems a scooch too killy for the cost.

Not to mention you are now making Lascannons practically irrelevant.

No one has said "Let's implement ALL the changes!" Because, yes, that turns it into a 2-shot Krak Missile, trading d6 for flat 3.

But currently, it has a direct competitor in the form of the Heavy Bolter, which is equal against T7, worse against T6, and better against literally every other Toughness value until you hit T10, which does not, to my knowledge, exist in the game.

Warlord Titans are T16, iirc Reavers are 12 or something (Warhounds are T9).
But yeah, I don't think that's too much of a concern.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Warlord Titans are T16, iirc Reavers are 12 or something (Warhounds are T9).
But yeah, I don't think that's too much of a concern.

According to Battlescribe, only the Warlord Titan breaches T8-and it's only T9!

Hmm, maybe I'm still thinking of 8th edition numbers?

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Hmm, maybe I'm still thinking of 8th edition numbers?

Probably. I do recall they used to be really high Toughness.

But yeah, that means that the only models that actually exist where Heavy Bolters are outperformed by Autocannons are T6 models.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
The absolute last thing we need is MORE special snowflake weapons with special snowflake abilities.

Fluffwise the autocannon has a very definite niche compared to a heavy bolter, it has lower RoF but more powerful.
The problem is GW has kept the autocannon's rules the same, whilst moving everything around it to the point it's no longer relevant. S7 is hardly better than S5 at wounding anything, and now heavy bolters do 3 damage as well.

The solution to it's profile now being naff is to make it not naff. Not to scrap and weapon and replace it with a new one for no other reason than giving it an annoyingly ostentatious name.

S7 is 50% better against T7, 100% against T6, those are the two most common vehicle Toughness values in the game. D2 heavy bolters was a mistake, they were never meant to be anti-vehicle or anti-Marine.

Erm... Maybe it's just me, but T7 and T8 are the common vehicle values. T6 is pretty rare.

T5 is pretty common as well with Drukhari and Harlequins, there it's a 33% increase, you're right T6 is not common, but I don't think T8 is more common.

And the only time an Autocannon outperforms a Heavy Bolter is against T6. At literally every other Toughness value, a Heavy Bolter does at least the same damage (on average), if not more.

Because it's damage 2 which I pointed out it shouldn't be. Otherwise, autocannon would outperform heavy bolter in every case, as it should.

Hey, how about just doubling damage of autocannons and increasing their pts cost by 5 pts? /s Slippy slide to the bottom, see how fast the game can get absolutely ruined.

Each shot is 33% more likely to wound a T5 thing, but then it shoots 50% less - net negative.

If all that changes is it becoming D3 that's not a major buff, doesn't invalidate anything else, and makes the autocannon much better in it's own niche.
It's not even unprecedented as Predator Autocannons are already D3, and back in editions prior to 8th is was a normal autocannon.