Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hellebore makes a good point in regards to the wounding chart. While I was a fan of the fact nobody was immune to certain weapons anymore, GW didn't help fix certain weapons to help reflect the new wounding chart. When I suggested Orks get T6 in another thread, someone brought up the fact some vehicles were T6.

Maybe that's a problem too?

SemperMortis wrote:


Going back to the general topic though. If a bolter goes to AP-1 base than everyone else needs a similar buff to compensate, a lot of factions already have this because their weapons were doing even less than bolters previously.

Not really. Some are supposed to be better than bolters, some are supposed to be worse.

Pre-9th edition Codex. A unit of Intercessors with Bolt rifles were beating Tau Firewarriors point for Point in a ranged duel. They were also drawing even with Ork Choppa boyz in CC point for point. So this just exacerbates the problem that Marine troops are competing and in some cases beating specialist troops from other factions and its a bit ridiculous.

Bog Standard Marines aren't specialist troops, they're elite troops(as opposed to specialist elites) that compete with specialist troops.

And yet again i'll point out that people have been independently of this topic calling for Marines to get more durable, deadlier in CC or increase ranged firepower. Think about what I just said, you have people arguing that Marines need to be even more durable, they literally doubled their durability and people still want more.

They doubled their wounds, not their durability.

So go ahead and give bog standard Marines -1AP and then other factions will argue they need an increase as well to compensate for the difference and shortly thereafter you will have this same argument about why Marines need 3 shots each instead of 2, or that Bolters need to go to S5 etc. etc. etc.

Pretty sure that's not required for other factions to argue they need an increase. Nor would it make those claims valid or invalid.

 Hellebore wrote:

So, IN THE CURRENT PARADIGM, (not in a hypothetical fantasy land where GW DIDN'T make fleshborers S5), I think that the bolter's mechanical position in the game would be around S5.

And Gauss Rifles, Shuriken Catapults, Pulse Rifles, Shootas, etc?

 Hellebore wrote:

I said 'in the current environment'. I find arguments like 'stop the power creep' pretty irrelevant because they're arguing from a position that doesn't exist - power creep has happened and you need to work within that paradigm. No amount of 'but I don't wanna' changes that.

Eh. I feel like "roll back the power creep" is just as valid as "do more power creep" though. And would probably be healthier for the game given that a lot of us seem to agree that things are too lethal. Like, sure. Power creep happened. But maybe the next step in a positive direction would be one that reduces overall lethality.

"But bolters always wounded marines on 4+" - well heavy bolters used to wound T3 on 2+ and now they currently don't. Fleshborerers used to wound marines on a 4+ but GW had no problem changing that.

Here's a suggestion that is probably way outside the scope of this thread: what if we got rid of S vs T in favor of flat to-wound values and a dramatic increase in hitpoints? Or better yet, just ditch the to-wound roll entirely. So a lasgun might wound a marine (and everything else for that matter) on a 4+, but the marine might have (just throwing a number out there) 5 wounds. So a lasgun that does 1 Damage wouldn't be very good against our marine. A bolter might be AP-1 and D2 making it significantly better against the marine. A shuriken catapult might be AP-1 but only D1etc.

Basically, the relationship between S and T is hard to tweak without getting a lot of weird consequences. See: bolters being worse at hurting T5 than T4, but a lasgun hurts both equally. So maybe it would be easier to just ditch S vs T and lean into Damage and Wounds (basically hit points).

PROS:
* You eliminate one of the major sources of dice rolling thus speeding things up.
* You eliminate an all-or-nothing failure point. So instead of being bummed that his lasguns only wound 1/3rd of the time, the guard player might see his lasguns steadily chipping away at the enemy.

NEUTRAL
* Weapons can still be anti-tank/anti-horde or whatever. You just represent it through AP and Damage.
* There shouldn't be any extra book-keeping; you'd still just have to figure out how many times over dudes in your army have died and then figure out how many wounds the last guy to get hurt has remaining. No different from tracking wounds on something like gravis armor marines now.

CONS
* Someone would have to overhaul every statline in the game.
* It's kind of Sigmar-y, which some people will dislike purely because hating on Sigmar was cool for a while.
* It's a dramatic change, and we all know change is scary and probably the work of Tzeentch.

Eh. I feel like "roll back the power creep" is just as valid as "do more power creep" though. And would probably be healthier for the game given that a lot of us seem to agree that things are too lethal. Like, sure. Power creep happened. But maybe the next step in a positive direction would be one that reduces overall lethality.

There is no way, aside for 10th being drasticly different from 9th ed, that the design team of the game sits down and in a span of 3-6 months depowers 7 to 9 books. And the changes for some of the armies would have to be big, not everything can be fixed with a points hike. And I assume realy fixing and not, it is a problem so we slap 100-150pts extra on it, so now no one will ever take it and the problem is gone.

Codex and codex fixs can not be writen with some mythological balance situation in mind. Because that does not exist, and will probably not exist. Worse, if the design team really does put out a balanced book, it is just bad and unfun to play.

The positive way of dealing with power creep is giving all books multiple valid ways to play. And if something happens to be too powerful, nerf it. Going to other way around can mean months, if not years of an army being bad. Just look at CSM for example.
That is an army GW balanced the living hell out of. In 8th GW was so worried to make GK too good, that they made them extremly bad. I don't know for which edition the new necron rules were writen, because it sure as hell was not the 9th.

So maybe it would be easier to just ditch S vs T and lean into Damage and Wounds (basically hit points).

And then to play stuff like melee walkers, dreads or knights you special set of rules and extra layers of defence or super speed and always hit first in melee, so they don't get farmed by swarms of 30 models hiting them on +4 and then wounding on+5/6 with a -1 to save, which can be buffed with stratagems.

Karol wrote:

Eh. I feel like "roll back the power creep" is just as valid as "do more power creep" though. And would probably be healthier for the game given that a lot of us seem to agree that things are too lethal. Like, sure. Power creep happened. But maybe the next step in a positive direction would be one that reduces overall lethality.

There is no way, aside for 10th being drasticly different from 9th ed, that the design team of the game sits down and in a span of 3-6 months depowers 7 to 9 books. And the changes for some of the armies would have to be big, not everything can be fixed with a points hike. And I assume realy fixing and not, it is a problem so we slap 100-150pts extra on it, so now no one will ever take it and the problem is gone.

Codex and codex fixs can not be writen with some mythological balance situation in mind. Because that does not exist, and will probably not exist. Worse, if the design team really does put out a balanced book, it is just bad and unfun to play.

I mean, that depends on what level of control over the future of 40k we're imagining we have, right? If we're dreaming about the GW designers being inspired by these forum posts and writing next year's releases with these posts in mind, then accounting for marketing decisions, how hard it would be to roll out updates, etc. makes sense. If we're having this discussion purely for the sake of enjoying a chat about game design, then we don't have to worry about how hard it would be to update all the books and other logistical issues. Neither approach to engaging in this thread is "better" than the other, but I'm not sure we can assume everyone is engaging with this thread in the same way. I think it's perfectly valid to discuss the topic both lenses (or other lenses entirely).

So maybe it would be easier to just ditch S vs T and lean into Damage and Wounds (basically hit points).

And then to play stuff like melee walkers, dreads or knights you special set of rules and extra layers of defence or super speed and always hit first in melee, so they don't get farmed by swarms of 30 models hiting them on +4 and then wounding on+5/6 with a -1 to save, which can be buffed with stratagems.

Nah. Not necessarily. A couple considerations:

A.) In the current rules, it is possible to drag down melee walkers, dreads, knights, etc. with swarms of models. Like, there's an average number of unbuffed lasgun shots you would need to kill a dreadnaught in the current rules. So if we were to ditch strength/toughness/to-wound rolls and raise the number of Wounds models have to compensate... Couldn't you just raise the wounds on a dread sufficiently high to make it basically as durable to lasguns in the new system as it is in the current system? It's entirely possible I'm overlooking something.

B.) It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that a sufficiently large horde could bring down a walker. My imperial knight model has lots of metal cables and important looking bits peeking out through gaps in its armor. There are even what appear to be giant fuel tanks strapped to the side of its chainsword. Presumably at least some of those wires, fuel tanks, etc. serve a purpose. If ork boyz fling enough shots between those armored plates and hack away at those leg cables long enough, it seems like something could conceivably give.

From what I have seen from the new monsters in 9th. Practically all of them get a str 5-6 10-12 A with -2 to save often doing 2-3D per hit. No one is swarming any big stuff in melee. Maybe nids will be able to do it, if their big squads are valid way to play. I personaly do not know.

B I would not bring lore in to game mechanics. If we go by that. A squad of my termintors, not paladins, should be able to solo a planet of demons or clean up a derelict craftworld of all the nids. Including the one that blew up the entire thing. I am also sure other armies can or have similar stuff in their lore.

I am talking about game mechanics. Same way knights can be seen , and shot, from behind terrain, but can't shot back , right now. It is not a fun thing to see and stuff like 30 grots or guants shouldn't be larger models hunters, specially at range. with str 5 basic guns, I assume the avarge wounding rate for the gun would be something in the range of +2/+4. Unless we split all weapon profiles in to two. One for hiting/wounds tanks, monsters and vehicles and the other one for infantry sized stuff. not sure how to do such a change without an edition reset. I guess it could be interesting with bolters being a +4/+4 weapons. While something like a fleshborer could bye +3/+6 while a shurikan catapult is +4/+5 with some special AP rules on to hit roll.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Hellebore makes a good point in regards to the wounding chart. While I was a fan of the fact nobody was immune to certain weapons anymore, GW didn't help fix certain weapons to help reflect the new wounding chart. When I suggested Orks get T6 in another thread, someone brought up the fact some vehicles were T6.

Maybe that's a problem too?

That’s definitely a problem. GW has artificially limited themselves to T8 as the top end, when that’s clearly not taking advantage of the systems abilities. Many vehicles (pretty much every “tank”) should be at least T8, with some of the biggest being T9 (baneblades, land raiders, big FW tanks, etc.)

Karol wrote:

I am talking about game mechanics. Same way knights can be seen , and shot, from behind terrain, but can't shot back , right now. It is not a fun thing to see and stuff like 30 grots or guants shouldn't be larger models hunters, specially at range. with str 5 basic guns, I assume the avarge wounding rate for the gun would be something in the range of +2/+4.

Well, unless I've missed something major, I don't think grots with their 12" guns are successfully hunting down knights, nor would they have to be if we dropped to-wound rolls and upped Wound stats. I haven't followed the gaunt situation very closely, but their updated gun profile is what? S5 Assault 3? So 30 gaunts -> 90 shots -> 45 hits. In the current system that turns into 7.5 wounds, 2.5 of which get through after saves. A paladin knight has 24 Wounds, so that's about 10% of its health gone. Under my proposal, those 45 hits become 15 failed saves, so to maintain the status quo, we'd want to up the knight's Wounds to something like 150 (about 6 times its current wounds).

People reading that might get a little number shock there, but consider that a lascannon might be doing something like 1d6 x 10 damage in the new system. So small arms fire would continue to be suboptimal vs big stuff. Big guns would continue to be relatively good against big stuff. AP still matters. Damage still matters. You just get to eliminate the kind of messy Strength VS Toughness comparison that leads to some weird interactions. Like how an S9 lascannon is better vs a T8 land raider than an S8 krak missile is, and yet they're both wounding a T7 rhino on 3s. Plus it's one fewer steps for new players to remember and one less step to resolve with dice rolls when playing the game.

Unless we split all weapon profiles in to two. One for hiting/wounds tanks, monsters and vehicles and the other one for infantry sized stuff. not sure how to do such a change without an edition reset. I guess it could be interesting with bolters being a +4/+4 weapons. While something like a fleshborer could bye +3/+6 while a shurikan catapult is +4/+5 with some special AP rules on to hit roll.

Sure. That might be neat. You could include or exclude a mechanic like that depending on how things work out after playtesting.

Well it is just observations, I am not game designer.

But I think it would be good if plasma vs very good at killing heavy infantry, but not that awesome at maxing damage to heavy tanks.

Maybe it would even be a way, besides range and points cost, to make a difference between a lascanon and a Melta/MultiMelta. Different anti infantry/anti tank stats, would also help with those rare moments when due to rules over lap a heavy bolter or a liquifire becomes a weapon that kills horde, tanks, titans everything. Autocanons and heavy bolters could be balanced against each other, same as Rocket Launchers. AC would be more anti tank, hvy bolters could do more dmg to infantry a RL would splat normal targets, infantry or light vehicle, but it would be one shot and struggle vs the heavier stuff. Am not sure if this wouldn't also impact how needed inv saves are for the game. With the need to spread weapon profiles more across all armies, it would be harder to find that those ,I take fourteen of those and they kill everything, kind of weapons.

I am just not sure if people would like the change. the double stated weapons would have to come at a cost or removal of some rules, to not make each codex end up being 300pages long.

Karol wrote:
Well it is just observations, I am not game designer.

But I think it would be good if plasma vs very good at killing heavy infantry, but not that awesome at maxing damage to heavy tanks.

Maybe it would even be a way, besides range and points cost, to make a difference between a lascanon and a Melta/MultiMelta. Different anti infantry/anti tank stats, would also help with those rare moments when due to rules over lap a heavy bolter or a liquifire becomes a weapon that kills horde, tanks, titans everything. Autocanons and heavy bolters could be balanced against each other, same as Rocket Launchers. AC would be more anti tank, hvy bolters could do more dmg to infantry a RL would splat normal targets, infantry or light vehicle, but it would be one shot and struggle vs the heavier stuff. Am not sure if this wouldn't also impact how needed inv saves are for the game. With the need to spread weapon profiles more across all armies, it would be harder to find that those ,I take fourteen of those and they kill everything, kind of weapons.

I am just not sure if people would like the change. the double stated weapons would have to come at a cost or removal of some rules, to not make each codex end up being 300pages long.

given that a lot of monstrous creatures and vehicles are pretty underwhelming i think part of the fix there is either upping wounds across the board for vehicles and monstrous creatures (they seemingly did this with the upcoming tyranid book). Alternatively they could also consider upping the armor saves including for some vehicles introducing the 1+ armor save where 1s always fail. Shooting a Landraider, Battlewagon, Leman Russ, monolith and maybe a few more. Then they could pass out 2+ armor to most vehicles and a 3+ to the weaker ones.

I feel like that sort of used to be accomplished by armor values and the pricing on weapons. Something s6 is going to struggle against most armor facings, and using a lascannon against infantry is a massive waste of points cause you’re not shooting it at armor.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
I feel like that sort of used to be accomplished by armor values and the pricing on weapons. Something s6 is going to struggle against most armor facings, and using a lascannon against infantry is a massive waste of points cause you’re not shooting it at armor.

Make tanks t12 and lascannons s14, job done.

Wyldhunt wrote:

I haven't followed the gaunt situation very closely, but their updated gun profile is what? S5 Assault 3?

No they don't have any S5 Assault 3.
Their basic fleshborer has strengthened, going from 12" Assault 1 S4 AP0, to 18" Assault 1 S5 AP-1.
However their devourer has weakened, going from 18" Assault 3 S4 AP0, to 18" Assault 2 S3 AP0.
Sounds like you're mixing up parts of the old devourer profile with the new fleshborer one.

I hate what they've done with the Devourer. Total weaksauce.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I hate what they've done with the Devourer. Total weaksauce.

Fully agreed. It feels like they nerfed if because it was the most popular Gaunt build, not because there was an actual problem with it.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I hate what they've done with the Devourer. Total weaksauce.

Fully agreed. It feels like they nerfed if because it was the most popular Gaunt build, not because there was an actual problem with it.

Again, they care way more about internal than external balance.

Dudeface wrote:

The problem with the increased durability on the marine was that it was very short lived. If they hadn't just slapped d2+ on everything and immediately invalidated the increased durability then they'd be in a decent place where you pay for the durability with reduced output (in an ideal world where 6 special rules don't make them fire iWins). Sort of like where plague marines are at in ranged output, which ironically are the "bad bolters" as noted in here.

And any increase to Marines durability or dmg output will be short lived because they are the STANDARD faction. Everything in this game is based on Space Marines which is why there is 120 (Obvious exaggeration) different flavors of Marines and rules for Marines. But at the end of the game their profiles stay relatively similar so everyone bases their lists around how to kill Marines as they will most likely be their most common opponent. And while everyone did bring out a lot more D2 weapons, what did that do to the weapons/factions that didn't receive a host of D2 upgrades? Any unit/weapon which now takes 2x more firepower to remove Marines is basically not taken unless there is no other options available.

 catbarf wrote:

Most Marine armies at this point are Primaris and they already have AP-1.
There is no reason why legacy Firstborn armies getting AP-1 would mean anyone else needs to be buffed to compensate.

What would be the point of Primaris Marines at that point? Why take 2ppm more expensive intercessors when you can just take cheaper first born Marines who basically do the exact same things but have more options? And literally in this very thread you have people mentioning that if you do buff bolters that Primaris would need a bump as well LOL. And one more time, why wouldn't everyone else get a similar increase so that their weapons perform better? Used to take 9 Shoota boyz to kill 1 Marine, now its 18. Why shouldn't my Shootas get 2x as many shots so that they are more effective?

 Hellebore wrote:
In the current environment, I could see standard bolt rounds becoming S5. Due to the way the SvsT rules work, they've been expanding T5. S5 has no effect on T3, but improves against T5.
So I could see it like this:
bolts are S5
Advanced bolts are AP-1
heavy bolts are S6

Ok....so then my Orkz get to go back to 6ppm than right? I mean you just invalidated their entire durability bonus since 4th edition so we get to go back to 4th edition prices right? And i'm assuming that price cut is across the board for all my T5 models since you just invalidated their durability bonus as well. So Warbikers drop 3-5ppm, Deffkoptas go down 10pts or so, Kommandos are now 9ppm etc etc etc.

You can't take the absolute most common weapon in the game, hand it a MASSIVE buff like S5 and then not expect a huge cascading effect of throwing the game balance completely out of whack.

Breton wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Pre-9th edition Codex. A unit of Intercessors with Bolt rifles were beating Tau Firewarriors point for Point in a ranged duel. They were also drawing even with Ork Choppa boyz in CC point for point. So this just exacerbates the problem that Marine troops are competing and in some cases beating specialist troops from other factions and its a bit ridiculous.

Bog Standard Marines aren't specialist troops, they're elite troops(as opposed to specialist elites) that compete with specialist troops.

So just by tacking on the word "Elite" to the troop choice its now ok for them to be Better than a ranged combat focused troop choice point for point while also being on par with a CC oriented troop choice point for point? That is the problem with this line of thinking. Just because you call them "Elite Troops" Doesn't mean game balance wise they should outperform a troops choice that is SOLELY dedicated to that one form of combat point for point.

Breton wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

And yet again i'll point out that people have been independently of this topic calling for Marines to get more durable, deadlier in CC or increase ranged firepower. Think about what I just said, you have people arguing that Marines need to be even more durable, they literally doubled their durability and people still want more.

They doubled their wounds, not their durability.

Which DOUBLED their durability against anti-infantry weapons. What happened was right after that the game re-balanced itself to favor D2 weapons which is why you saw heavy bolters and analogues becoming much more prevalent then ever before. Which just reiterates the point previously made that any substantial change to Marines inevitably leads to changes to every other faction to adjust to the most common meta opponent...Marines. Hence giving them AP-1 will mean a host of other changes are now warranted, and hell, I would argue some already are just from the increase in SM's Bolter discipline and doctrines not to mention durability increases against common weapon types which are now functionally useless unless they've likewise been buffed (Shootas are dead, Big shootas are useless except when spammed by units under +1 to hit aura's)

Breton wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

So go ahead and give bog standard Marines -1AP and then other factions will argue they need an increase as well to compensate for the difference and shortly thereafter you will have this same argument about why Marines need 3 shots each instead of 2, or that Bolters need to go to S5 etc. etc. etc.

Pretty sure that's not required for other factions to argue they need an increase. Nor would it make those claims valid or invalid.

Ironically in this very thread you already had people say make bolters S5 and yes if you buff Marines to make them better against everything in the game with -1AP on bolters you need to adjust other weapons to become better as well otherwise you aren't playing a game you are playing a fantasy power trip.

18 shoota shots to kill 1 Marine in 4th.
3 bolter shots to kill 1 Ork in 4th.

36 shoota shots to kill 1 Marine in 9th.
5.4 bolter shots to kill 1 Ork in 9th.

Make it AP-1 and the math goes to 4.5 So Orkz used to have an exchange rate of 3.6, IE it takes 3.6pts of shoota boyz to kill 1pt of Marine. Its now 9pts to kill 1pt of Marine.
Bolters used to have an exchange rate of 7.5pts of Marine to kill 1pt of Ork. Its now 5.4, and if you make them AP-1 it goes to 4.5

So explain to me why Orkz should now be 250% worse at killing Marines with shootas in the same time frame that Marines are 28% better at killing Orkz with bolters and then further explain to me why that isn't good enough and you need the math to go even further to become 40% better at killing?

Most factions weapons already are better then bolters, and often on much more efficient platforms. Tau, ad mecha, even eldar guns , and now the updated nid guns are carried by models that often cost half or even less then what a marine does.

Comparing marine bolters to orks, who clearly were not ment to shot, or probably even be taken in 9th ed, is a bit off a stretch. I mean even the -1AP thing seems to be give out like candy to most newer factions.

Karol wrote:
Most factions weapons already are better then bolters, and often on much more efficient platforms. Tau, ad mecha, even eldar guns , and now the updated nid guns are carried by models that often cost half or even less then what a marine does.

Comparing marine bolters to orks, who clearly were not ment to shot, or probably even be taken in 9th ed, is a bit off a stretch. I mean even the -1AP thing seems to be give out like candy to most newer factions.

Jidmah will be happy to post you a list of all the ork shooting focused units which prove you 100% wrong. But for brevity...yeah you are wicked wrong bud. And as far as not taken in 9th...thats because the muppets who wrote the ork codex don't understand orkz in the slightest....hence they have not once, but twice made Trukkboyz illegal or unable to ride in trukks

But even if Shoota boyz are so bad they aren't taken (Which is 100% true) then why wouldn't they get a massive increase in dmg output to the tune of more than DOUBLING their shots?

Hecaton wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I hate what they've done with the Devourer. Total weaksauce.

Fully agreed. It feels like they nerfed if because it was the most popular Gaunt build, not because there was an actual problem with it.

Again, they care way more about internal than external balance.

I don't disagree with that statement, but the worst part is that the Fleshborer buff already fixed internal balance on those options.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Karol wrote:
Well it is just observations, I am not game designer.

But I think it would be good if plasma vs very good at killing heavy infantry, but not that awesome at maxing damage to heavy tanks.

Maybe it would even be a way, besides range and points cost, to make a difference between a lascanon and a Melta/MultiMelta. Different anti infantry/anti tank stats, would also help with those rare moments when due to rules over lap a heavy bolter or a liquifire becomes a weapon that kills horde, tanks, titans everything. Autocanons and heavy bolters could be balanced against each other, same as Rocket Launchers. AC would be more anti tank, hvy bolters could do more dmg to infantry a RL would splat normal targets, infantry or light vehicle, but it would be one shot and struggle vs the heavier stuff. Am not sure if this wouldn't also impact how needed inv saves are for the game. With the need to spread weapon profiles more across all armies, it would be harder to find that those ,I take fourteen of those and they kill everything, kind of weapons.

I am just not sure if people would like the change. the double stated weapons would have to come at a cost or removal of some rules, to not make each codex end up being 300pages long.

given that a lot of monstrous creatures and vehicles are pretty underwhelming i think part of the fix there is either upping wounds across the board for vehicles and monstrous creatures (they seemingly did this with the upcoming tyranid book). Alternatively they could also consider upping the armor saves including for some vehicles introducing the 1+ armor save where 1s always fail. Shooting a Landraider, Battlewagon, Leman Russ, monolith and maybe a few more. Then they could pass out 2+ armor to most vehicles and a 3+ to the weaker ones.

I'd borrow what they did with AIRCRAFT and anti-aircraft - Vehicles can be T11-T20 Anti Vehicle weapons can get a Grav Canon style bespoke that gives them +10S vs Vehicles - Or perhaps they need to do it with wounds I don't know. Vehicles are W 31-50 or something and Anti vehicle weapons get Damage D6+6 or some such vs vehicles. I'm not suggesting final numbers, just some pulled from thin air for generic theme/idea/examples. They basically created a shared but rarely overlapping space for Aircraft - do the same with at least medium to heavy vehicles (tanks from Rhinos to Land Raiders)

One thing I hated but miss about the old AV system was that tanks could live forever or they could get one shot. In a perfect world, I'd return to a version of that system - just different. They'd have two AV's. A lower one for that chips away wounds with a small potential for weapon destroyed etc. or a higher one that has destroyed and higher chances of weapon destroyed, immobilized, etc. So a Grav Canon might strip wounds (slower than now) - while a Quake Canon would be more likely to hit that top AV and destroy it outright.

Quasistellar wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

That’s definitely a problem. GW has artificially limited themselves to T8 as the top end, when that’s clearly not taking advantage of the systems abilities. Many vehicles (pretty much every “tank”) should be at least T8, with some of the biggest being T9 (baneblades, land raiders, big FW tanks, etc.)

I have thought about this a bit and come to the conclusion that this is not a good idea, as it messes with the profiles of many weapons. Autocannons, for instance, will lose what niche they have completely, heavy bolters become better at killing light vehicles. Melta weapons start wounding heavy armor, which is their preferred target supposedly, on 5s.

I do not think that low T is the problem with vehicles/big monsters, but lack of wounds.

In the current design space it does feel like wounds are not high enough across the board. I don't think I want to see wounds keep increading though because then we start bleeding into the granularity one would expect from a skirmish game like Kill Team and I don't think that'll fit 40k as effectively.

A lot of w40k rules don't fit or hurt the game play stricktly because we are playing with a skirmish mind set for some rules and fixs. While the game is clearly mass combat orientated. Maybe there are some people with more expiriance playing something else then 2000pts, who can say if w40k is more balanced and fun at 500 or 750pts. From the few non 2000pts games I saw, I think it is not the case.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
In the current design space it does feel like wounds are not high enough across the board. I don't think I want to see wounds keep increading though because then we start bleeding into the granularity one would expect from a skirmish game like Kill Team and I don't think that'll fit 40k as effectively.

The bigger problem is some armies simply can't deal with it. Their design simply doesn't include many (or any) big honking space guns, so they can't deal with ever increasing toughness and/or wounds.

On the other hand, big honking space guns are in play, so trivialize a lot of models, and now base weapons are encroaching into special/heavy weapons territory. Its a messy disaster with a lot of 'haves' and 'have nots.'

As other people have said, with the way the to wound table works, you start getting weird (or undesirable) results if T9 becomes a more regular thing.

The Autocannon is (imo anyway) already screwed because you have an ever increasing number of rules that make S8 a break point. Not to pick on Orks - but imo "autocannons" should be the correct weapon to use versus T6 buggies - but Ramshacle exists to completely neuter this for no obvious reason. S7 AP-1 2 damage is just a very soft profile in the current game - where you stand to be screwed over by toughness, armour or special rules reducing damage. But from say a DE perspective, you'd be back to favouring say Disintegrators over Dark Lances into T9 without additional rules impacts. And you could say "well we'll just make lances S9 then" but that surely defeats the point if you want vehicles to be more resilient.

I feel a lot of arguments on S and T are about some sort of aesthetic sense rather than in game maths. It may upset people that a Fleshborer is S5 AP-1 while the bolter is S4 AP-, but as I think various people have argued in the thread it doesn't obviously make a fleshborer termagant an especially "good" shooting unit - given the points hike.

Really I think I'm with those who just want this manufactured discontent/codex creep to end. GW can give almost every weapon in the game AP-1 - but if GW then up every save in the game by 1, what was the point? Marines going to 2 wounds was meant to matter - but 2 damage has now been given to about half the weapons in the game seemingly for free. Orks going to T5 was meant to matter - but in the same way, S5 has become a far more common phenomenon, probably because Tournament Players *need* to be wounding on 3s into T4 (with rerolls, obviously.)

D2 was given out too much because people complained Marines are too durable and with how GW plays in house they probably agreed.

I feel like the 2 wounds on Marines paired with D2 weapons was to start splitting the game up so no one weapon is good against everything.

I get that AP generally did that in the past (along with the wounding chart which gatekept small arms from ever working on tougher models) but the new AP system needs more to seperate things out and make the game more interest as every weapon will have prefered targets encouraging a wider range of wrapons being mixed into armies.

At least that's what the intent looks like. In practice players still gravitate towards the single most optimal weapon (or set of weapons) they can run because redundancy is so important in mitigating risk.

Plus not every army has been updated yet so until the dust settles we're all in a weird limbo right now.

Like I applaud the design direction in that they are taking great pains to try and give weapons more distinct niches and roled that feel lore appropiate but dang does the whole thing feel like it needs a bit more time in the oven.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
D2 was given out too much because people complained Marines are too durable and with how GW plays in house they probably agreed.

The problem is that marines got 2W, because in 8th , even primaris with their 2W were considered not worth taking.