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 kirotheavenger wrote:
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.

Why does it need to be better? Just to keep up with another bad change? Why not suggest D1 heavy bolters instead, they are the problem that caused this thread, not the autocannon. Autocannon Strength, Damage and rate of fire was not too low in 8th. Good call on suggesting D2 predator autocannons as well, no good reason for them to be D3.

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

Nobody took the standard Autocannon Predator, so thay doesn't really help the argument.

 vict0988 wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
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.

Why does it need to be better? Just to keep up with another bad change? Why not suggest D1 heavy bolters instead, they are the problem that caused this thread, not the autocannon. Autocannon Strength, Damage and rate of fire was not too low in 8th. Good call on suggesting D2 predator autocannons as well, no good reason for them to be D3.

Returning HBs to D1 is probably a reasonable suggestion. I don't hate them at D2, but you could have made them S6 or rapid fire 2 or something instead if you wanted to buff them. D2 feels like a response to:
A.) Marines getting an extra wound
B.) All of the other super special bolt weapons occassionally having D2. It's slightly weird for the stalker rifle to do more damage with a normal-sized round than the HB does with a big, chunky round. (Although I always head canon'd that as being the result of usage; you aim the stalker bolter at weak points like a video game sniper weapons whereas the heavy bolter just gets sprayed into the center of the target's mass.)

The heavy bolter becoming damage 2 is a direct result of Astartes escalating the game, 2W is now not uncommon so weapons had to respond.
Heavy Splinter Cannons are also being increased to D2, and I can see this sort of change trickling on through.
Which is why I don't think dropping heavy bolters to D1 is a good idea.
Unless we drop astartes to 1W again, but you've got to draw the line somewhere...

Increasing the capabilities of autocannons seems to be the easiest solution.
I do like Predator Autocannons being better than regular Autocannons though, but they're already 2d3 shots rather than 2.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

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

Nobody took the standard Autocannon Predator, so thay doesn't really help the argument.

In some editions the TLLC was massively overpriced. The Auto/Las pred was a solid choice, and remains my favorite loadout. Quad las was king for a bit, I’ll give you that. I think both options are valid choices in 9th, with all the buffs on the Pred AC.

---

One problem with 40k is there is not a lot of room in the design space. And especially with imperium (and chaos for that mater) units/weapons is that there are a lot of things already sharing it. What’s the AC’s role? Long range generalist weapon for taking down light vehicles and monsters. Problem is that other weapons are stepping on its toes. Which is a little ironic, as when the preferred method of killing vehicles was glancing them to death, it was the weapon of choice over dedicated AV guns. Bumping it to S8 I think would push it out of its role. T8 things are heavy armor, and S8+ things are dedicated AV guns. Plus this would let it wound T4 things on a 2+, which is a pretty critical breakpoint.

But if we are not going to change the S, what are the other options? AV? Not a bad call. This helps differentiate it from the horde killing HB by giving it fewer shots, but with more punch. Up to D3? Again, letting its fewer shots hit harder. This option also doesn’t step on the role of guns that clear chaff, as 3 damage is overkill. But for its primary target, very important. Up both? That would be nice, but might be a little too much. Points can be adjusted to power level.

If we make the HB D1, you have nerfed far more things in the game than you would if you just dropped the AC. For point of reference almost every tank and or Imperial T8 vehicle has a HB. Nerfing a HB means nerfing Astartes. Dropping the AC or making it a special named version JUST affects the guard or Stock Chaos, which will likely get a pretty big buff here anyway.

Make the AC S7 AP2 D2 and make it so the damage cannot be altered. By anything. Then it's got it's role back (Heavy infantry mulcher) and it's actually useful.

I honestly don't see the relevance of giving it a special name. How does that factor into solving anything?

It would also be very strange to give the autocannon some special rule to negate damage reduction, almost nothing has that in the game.
Making it D3 would make it effective for killing heavy infantry like Gravis and light vehicles. Whereas the moderate strength would prevent it from being properly effective vs heavier vehicles.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
If we make the HB D1, you have nerfed far more things in the game than you would if you just dropped the AC.

What's the problem with nerfing the damage output of these units? It's not a problem, it's solving the problem of heavy bolters being too killy against multi-wound models.

Nerfing heavy bolters does not nerf Astartes, it's not a weapon that they spam and it's a weapon that is great against Astartes, nerfing it is buffing Astartes because it means the main anti-infantry heavy weapon for Firstborn is not also an anti-Astartes weapon. Plasma still counters Astartes, there was never a need for D2 HB.

Demolisher cannons and doomsday cannons also need to go back to d3 shots. Exorcists need to have their shots and damage brought back down. Multi-melta should go back to Heavy 1. Eradicators need to lose their double-tap ability as Aggressors did. Doctrines should be Stratagems, not purity abilities.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I honestly don't see the relevance of giving it a special name. How does that factor into solving anything?

It would also be very strange to give the autocannon some special rule to negate damage reduction, almost nothing has that in the game.
Making it D3 would make it effective for killing heavy infantry like Gravis and light vehicles. Whereas the moderate strength would prevent it from being properly effective vs heavier vehicles.

If it's not a "generic AC" it can have any rules it wants. It can be S50 with 30 shots of AP5 3d6 if it's a "OPCANNON". Thats my point. Named weapons can have special profiles. If you alter the generic one then you alter tons of units. I would not be surprised to see IG get some form of Gunnery buff, either by strat or by orders, or by weapon profiles. They are just so bad right now under 9th, they need something to be able to stand up against the Elite Armies.

The autocannon being bad applies to everyone that has it.
Although that's pretty much only the Guard and Chaos Marines.
Altering all the units that suffer from a terrible autocannon is surely a good thing.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
The autocannon being bad applies to everyone that has it.
Although that's pretty much only the Guard and Chaos Marines.
Altering all the units that suffer from a terrible autocannon is surely a good thing.

It wasn't terrible in 8th was it? https://spikeybits.com/2019/06/top-5-imperial-weapons-to-spam-in-8th-edition.html What changed?

 kirotheavenger wrote:
The autocannon being bad applies to everyone that has it.
Although that's pretty much only the Guard and Chaos Marines.
Altering all the units that suffer from a terrible autocannon is surely a good thing.

Lootas have the equivalent of autocannons, and they're also bad. Which is even worse than imperium counterparts since they don't have many other units with different weapons that compete with them, and yet they're outperformed by pretty much everything.

 vict0988 wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
The autocannon being bad applies to everyone that has it.
Although that's pretty much only the Guard and Chaos Marines.
Altering all the units that suffer from a terrible autocannon is surely a good thing.

It wasn't terrible in 8th was it? https://spikeybits.com/2019/06/top-5-imperial-weapons-to-spam-in-8th-edition.html What changed?

Points changes, Heavy Bolters becoming D2, and smaller/tighter boards are the main changes that mattered

I can see why people would not want to upgrade those dumb spacemarine leviathan autocannons, but currently the guard are really looking for buffs, and the autocannon is pretty iconic to the guard, also chaos space marines could definitely use an upgrade to their autocannons, btw still cannot believe chaos space marines havent gotten their extra wounds

bat702 wrote:
I can see why people would not want to upgrade those dumb spacemarine leviathan autocannons, but currently the guard are really looking for buffs, and the autocannon is pretty iconic to the guard, also chaos space marines could definitely use an upgrade to their autocannons, btw still cannot believe chaos space marines havent gotten their extra wounds

Leviathans were nerfed, so they're really not an issue.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
In this case, I think that the fix is to restore the wounding chart to the old:

>T2+: 2+ to wound
>T: 3+ to wound
=T: 4+ to wound
<T: 5+ to wound
><T2+: 6+ to wound

Weapons that are twice the strength of a model's toughness deal mortal wounds. Weapons can never wound on worse than a 6, rolls of 1 always fail.>

Oh God if only that was the case.

Make that change and suddenly vehicles are less squishy. GW will remain too scared to give out toughnesses above 8, but still, it'll help things immensely.

I never understood why they changed the To Wound chart in the first place.

I can see the benefit of the new to-wound chart.
A big part of the problem is they changed the chart, but kept the same weapon and toughness scale (eg S9 lascannon). Which is silly because those values were designed to be used with the old to-wound chart.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
I never understood why they changed the To Wound chart in the first place.

Because they want Timmy "Fresh new player" to be able to roll their dice and see a result every time. I just 12 d6s to simulate my las-guns shooting your Warhound! And I hit 6 times, and did 1 wound!

It gets even worse when an Ork opponent chipped a wound off my Landraider with a Grot Blaster.

It's catering to the crowd that don't like rules saying they CANNOT do something. As in you CANNOT damage that 12k year old land raider with your las pistol. But what if my Sgt shoots a lucky shot?!

I hate it, and want the old wounding chart back, also AV tables.

Changing the Heavy Bolter to be D2 only against INFANTRY and CAVALRY, and maybe BIKE (and thus not against VEHICLES); perhaps having the autocannon get AP-2 against the same range of targets, would make each more different in some respects.

 Kcalehc wrote:
Changing the Heavy Bolter to be D2 only against INFANTRY and CAVALRY, and maybe BIKE (and thus not against VEHICLES); perhaps having the autocannon get AP-2 against the same range of targets, would make each more different in some respects.

that sounds exactlly like what S vs T is supposed to be. Only problem is we use a d6 system that says "Anyone can cook, I mean Wound".

 Kcalehc wrote:
Changing the Heavy Bolter to be D2 only against INFANTRY and CAVALRY, and maybe BIKE (and thus not against VEHICLES); perhaps having the autocannon get AP-2 against the same range of targets, would make each more different in some respects.

Why should the heavy bolter be anti-MEQ?

Because it's literally designed to kill large ammounts of heavy infantry, lol. I mean without getting into the fluff, it actually fires bigger bullets than the AC.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
I never understood why they changed the To Wound chart in the first place.

Because they want Timmy "Fresh new player" to be able to roll their dice and see a result every time. I just 12 d6s to simulate my las-guns shooting your Warhound! And I hit 6 times, and did 1 wound!

It gets even worse when an Ork opponent chipped a wound off my Landraider with a Grot Blaster.

It's catering to the crowd that don't like rules saying they CANNOT do something. As in you CANNOT damage that 12k year old land raider with your las pistol. But what if my Sgt shoots a lucky shot?!

I hate it, and want the old wounding chart back, also AV tables.

AV is stupid and anyone defending it and facing values needs to let go of the rose tinted glasses. Being able to wound anything isn't the problem. The problem is the D6 system it's limited to.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
I never understood why they changed the To Wound chart in the first place.

Because they want Timmy "Fresh new player" to be able to roll their dice and see a result every time. I just 12 d6s to simulate my las-guns shooting your Warhound! And I hit 6 times, and did 1 wound!

It gets even worse when an Ork opponent chipped a wound off my Landraider with a Grot Blaster.

It's catering to the crowd that don't like rules saying they CANNOT do something. As in you CANNOT damage that 12k year old land raider with your las pistol. But what if my Sgt shoots a lucky shot?!

I hate it, and want the old wounding chart back, also AV tables.

AV is stupid and anyone defending it and facing values needs to let go of the rose tinted glasses. Being able to wound anything isn't the problem. The problem is the D6 system it's limited to.

I wasn't playing during the AV system days, but word got back from those who were, and their arguments for a return have good points.

I am confused, the d6 system is the problem, but not the fact that anything can wound anything? Are you advocating a d10/12 system? I'll wager GW will give out free rules to every new player before they give up their special dice racket. Plus having the re-write the entire game.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Because it's literally designed to kill large amounts of heavy infantry, lol. I mean without getting into the fluff, it actually fires bigger bullets than the AC.

So why was it AP 4 and not AP 3 in the old AP system? No, I think we should get into the fluff, how do you know the different calibres of the guns in 40k? You can't say "without getting into the fluff" and then get into the fluff and then also not provide proof of your claim, that's just weasely debate tactics. If you can't explain away why heavy bolters were not an anti-MEQ weapon previous to 8th you should at least be able to find a piece of fluff that says heavy bolters are designed for killing large amounts of Astartes and not just generic infantry like Guardsmen. I found one quote in the Astra Militarum book that said that heavy bolters and autocannons are good at mulching down infantry and light tanks, whether that means both are good at killing both or that heavy bolters are good at killing infantry while autocannons are good at killing light tanks is unclear, but even you read heavy bolters as being excellent anti-light tank leading to Damage 2 then autocannons should be excellent at killing infantry as well and should get another shot. Giving them the same profile would at least make the game a little simpler.

 vict0988 wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Because it's literally designed to kill large amounts of heavy infantry, lol. I mean without getting into the fluff, it actually fires bigger bullets than the AC.

So why was it AP 4 and not AP 3 in the old AP system? No, I think we should get into the fluff, how do you know the different calibres of the guns in 40k? You can't say "without getting into the fluff" and then get into the fluff and then also not provide proof of your claim, that's just weasely debate tactics. If you can't explain away why heavy bolters were not an anti-MEQ weapon previous to 8th you should at least be able to find a piece of fluff that says heavy bolters are designed for killing large amounts of Astartes and not just generic infantry like Guardsmen. I found one quote in the Astra Militarum book that said that heavy bolters and autocannons are good at mulching down infantry and light tanks, whether that means both are good at killing both or that heavy bolters are good at killing infantry while autocannons are good at killing light tanks is unclear, but even you read heavy bolters as being excellent anti-light tank leading to Damage 2 then autocannons should be excellent at killing infantry as well and should get another shot. Giving them the same profile would at least make the game a little simpler.

I really don't know why you are picking a fight on a fantasy space battle forum, but whatever.

Getting into the fluff - They (The writers have listed out the dimensions of the rounds in various texts and books.) That being said, the HB round is a larger Bolter round, which is already a Rocket Propelled Grenade. The dimensions of the Bolter round are .75 calibre mass reactive explosive tipped round(https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Bolter#Standard_Bolt). The heavy bolter fires a much larger round (https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Bolter#Heavy_Bolter) So all I have to do is prove the AC fires a smaller round than the standard bolter and I'm set. In several of the gaunt books it talks about the Autocannons putting out 20mm rounds of death. A 20mm is effectively .76 caliber. So if the HB is MUCH larger than a standard Bolter round, the HB round would be bigger than the AC round, not to mention Explosive tipped mass reactive and rocket propelled.
Again, I don't like getting "into the fluff" because none of it matters. IT's all completely made up and the rules are dropped at the earliest convenience. Ala back flipping terminators and Multi-laser Land Raiders, or Brothers of the Snake where a single marine is faster than a pack of Dark Eldar. Or the entire Cain series, where he defeats a Black Legionaire in single combat. Fluff is BS and not to be trusted. Thats why I said lets not get into it.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
I never understood why they changed the To Wound chart in the first place.

Because they want Timmy "Fresh new player" to be able to roll their dice and see a result every time. I just 12 d6s to simulate my las-guns shooting your Warhound! And I hit 6 times, and did 1 wound!

It gets even worse when an Ork opponent chipped a wound off my Landraider with a Grot Blaster.

It's catering to the crowd that don't like rules saying they CANNOT do something. As in you CANNOT damage that 12k year old land raider with your las pistol. But what if my Sgt shoots a lucky shot?!

I hate it, and want the old wounding chart back, also AV tables.

AV is stupid and anyone defending it and facing values needs to let go of the rose tinted glasses. Being able to wound anything isn't the problem. The problem is the D6 system it's limited to.

I wasn't playing during the AV system days, but word got back from those who were, and their arguments for a return have good points.

I am confused, the d6 system is the problem, but not the fact that anything can wound anything? Are you advocating a d10/12 system? I'll wager GW will give out free rules to every new player before they give up their special dice racket. Plus having the re-write the entire game.

I've been advocating for D8 at minimum, and think that a D10 system would work incredibly well.

GW will never move away from d6. Although it's not a dice racket at all.
Games like legion or dust use unique dice with special symbols.
GW uses the most generic dice going and uses normal numbers.

The idea of the autocannon being equivalent to the bolter is ridiculous, and isn't substantiated by anything but a single line in a book.
A book which, btw, includes events such as a lasgun felling a Space Marine, a lasgun blowing a man's arm off, and a lasgun hitting someone square in the throat and not killing them.

But let's assume for a second that autocannons firing 20mm rounds was accurate in that instance.
Maybe they were firing sabot rounds for armour penetration? Even if they were firing at infantry targets, it might have been what was in the belt, or they were blasting through cover.

It's better to look at role instead of one single reference in a book, because those aren't even internally consistent let alone across the entire lore!
The heavy bolter has always been the heavy machine gun. Adept at mowing down lower toughness and mid-armoured troops.
The autocannon has always had equivalent AP, but higher strength. This particularly made it effective against light to medium vehicles over the heavy bolter, which is where it's role was seen.

At the moment the autocannon doesn't even do that. It's just a gak choice.
D3 would make it more useful against very heavy infantry like Deathguard or Gravis, and vehicles. But the heavy would still be superior against other infantry, up to and including regular Astartes. I think that's fair.

I could get behind a flat 3 damage gun, but then I would hate seeing all the hordes of Havocs mowing down anything in the game at 48".