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Remember the good old Vehicle Design Rules for 40k, where you could modify and Frankenstein together vehicles like a power mad Heretek?

I know this is a long shot... but... Has anyone found any way to create vehicles in the current ruleset?

I mean who wouldn't want a real space marine vehicle like this one?

You can barely do weapon swaps on Characters.
I don’t think it’s coming back any time soon.

No, please, no.

It was in theory, a lovely addition to the game. Something to let us filed bizarre kitbashes we cobbled together as an interesting project.

In practice, weird men used it to cover rather deliberate tactical gaps in their army. Or make crap like a ‘flatbed Rhino” to speed up Dreadnoughts for a relatively few points.

We as a collective whole just cannot be trusted with the power of creation.

That said, there's always the Proposed Rules section if you have something specific in mind that you want to create and want feedback on how to hammer it into a halfway balanced shape.

yes of course, I'm surprised by how much of the 'modeling" part of the hobby has disappeared and only seems to be replaced with "painting" part of the hobby.

BanjoJohn wrote:
yes of course, I'm surprised by how much of the 'modeling" part of the hobby has disappeared and only seems to be replaced with "painting" part of the hobby.

I've noticed the same. I remember when people would customize their forces with parts from all the ranges.

Now every single Space Marine Captain looks like it popped out of a cloning vat.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

BanjoJohn wrote:
yes of course, I'm surprised by how much of the 'modeling" part of the hobby has disappeared and only seems to be replaced with "painting" part of the hobby.

I've noticed the same. I remember when people would customize their forces with parts from all the ranges.

Now every single Space Marine Captain looks like it popped out of a cloning vat.

While I certainly agree that there have been times in the history of the game where modelling has been a more dominant component of the Hobby, I will push back against this statement a bit. For example, just before writing this, I was looking through the 9 page spread of conversions in White Dwarf 510's car racing article; I think it's the third in the series, and the first two had almost as many.

Crusade provides a lot of modeling cues for folks who like to convert- my bases evolve as my models earn XP- I'll ad a skull for each level I earn. I try to model Crusade relics to the best of my meagre ability. One of my favourite is using full kits to represent the final upgrade, but using partial versions of those models to represent the younger version- so I'm building my Dialogus without the power podium (she'll get that when she reaches Heroic) and I'm magnetizing backpacks so that she can start with something unadorned, then graduate to something more flashy at Battle-Hardened before giving her the giant book that comes in the kit at Legendary.

And finally, the Imperial weirdo multi-builds do facilitate some degree of kit bashing. The jigsaw phenomenon with modern plastic is somewhat mitigated by models designed as dual builds.

Having said all that, I certainly agree that previous eras of the game had even more emphasis on modelling. There are lots of conversions in White Dwarf, but rarely feature articles on how to convert. I haven't watched the conversion shows on WH+, but I know there are some... Though it isn't as high-gear as the mainstream support in previous editions where some dexes included conversion tips and others that released books on modelling or scratch building terrain. I think that's partially due to the expansiveness of the modern range.

The modelling/ converting/ scratch-building elements of the hobby aren't as prominent as they once were, but they haven't entirely disappeared yet.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

BanjoJohn wrote:
yes of course, I'm surprised by how much of the 'modeling" part of the hobby has disappeared and only seems to be replaced with "painting" part of the hobby.

I've noticed the same. I remember when people would customize their forces with parts from all the ranges.

Now every single Space Marine Captain looks like it popped out of a cloning vat.

And here’s a word from our sponsors, Sad Cheating Gits Anonymous. Well, several words.

Modelling For Advantage.

It was a thing once, and if Sad Cheating Gits Anonymous would have their way? VDR is their carte Blanche.

You thought unit spam was bad? You thought rules lawyering was bad? VDR married them and the offspring tended toward the abominable.

VDR was never an Official Tournament Ready rule and you never had carte blanche to make up your own vehicle and foist it on an unsuspecting pick-up opponent. It was an optional addon from an era where you were encouraged to get together with like-minded friends and make the hobby your own.

And the people I see complain about 'modeling for advantage' tend to be the sort of miserably dull player that the current game design caters to, pushing half-painted meta lists around ITC-approved layouts of identical L-shaped ruins, giving the side-eye to models that aren't the current official sculpts on the current official base size assembled exactly according to the instructions.

Nah, feth that noise. We could use more content that prioritizes creativity, Your Dudes, engagement with the hobby, and fun- no need to strip all that out because some people who prefer sterile competitive play can't handle it. It's okay to have rules that aren't tournament-approved.

I guess I never saw that kind of poor sportsmanship, since I'm not familiar at all with "modeling for advantage."

Heck, the most fun we used to have was creating new toys and new scenarios to throw them in.

I'd love to see some fun customization return. I kinda miss the old days of 3/4/5.

I want to put an exorcist launcher on a Sisters-aligned Knight- there's a really cool image floating around of a Sisters knight that uses Junith's Pulpit and an exorcist launcher.

I can built that and "Count As" whatever, but I'd rather be able to build reasonable rules for what the model represents.

 catbarf wrote:
VDR was never an Official Tournament Ready rule and you never had carte blanche to make up your own vehicle and foist it on an unsuspecting pick-up opponent. It was an optional addon from an era where you were encouraged to get together with like-minded friends and make the hobby your own.

And the people I see complain about 'modeling for advantage' tend to be the sort of miserably dull player that the current game design caters to, pushing half-painted meta lists around ITC-approved layouts of identical L-shaped ruins, giving the side-eye to models that aren't the current official sculpts on the current official base size assembled exactly according to the instructions.

Nah, feth that noise. We could use more content that prioritizes creativity, Your Dudes, engagement with the hobby, and fun- no need to strip all that out because some people who prefer sterile competitive play can't handle it. It's okay to have rules that aren't tournament-approved.

100% it was awesome.

And sometimes my brother and I would try to outdo each other with OP builds (and it was its own kind of fun).

But in other cases it allowed us to just make cool s*** like this and put it on the table with rules. It was glorious!

I had two main creations from the VDR (although I designed many more, just never got around to making them)

Back in the old days, there were no twin-powerfist dreadnoughts except the Furioso. Me, a poor lowly Death Guard player, had no access to such things, so I converted one up and VDRd it. From what I remember it ended up about 20-30% more expensive than a furioso (as was normal with most attempts to recreate existing vehicles with the system, there was a hefty "VDR tax" built in to the costing) but I loved using it and everyone at my local club was fine with it (possibly because it meant they didn't have to deal with the alternative)

My other creation was theoretical, on the old Imperial Guard yahoo group I proposed the Grot Wall - guardsmen who had gotten fed up with dealing with swarms of gretchin had welded their jasguns into holes in a sheet of armaplas, resulting in an immobile 10/9/8 vehicle with no weapons except 20 lasguns. Dirt cheap, but front AV10 made it immune to the grots' S3 blastas. A bit exploitative, but intentionally so.

I will always be in favour of more creativity and customisability in wargames, and the VDR were great fun to play with. Were there overpowered combinations? of course, but those appeared on the tabletop far less than they were discussed as possibilities

Bizarrely, you actually can just... create stuff. And then write rules for it. And then ask people if they're willing to play a friendly game against you using it.

Granted, you'll have to be careful to balance your creation.

Try googling "Razorback Rikarius" for an example. It has an actual datasheet that GW published, AFTER somebody created it and used it in house-ruled games for a while. GW doesn't hammer you flat for doing stuff with their game system. They hammer you flat for attempting to make money for you using their game system. If you make something cool and share it with them and give them the opportunity to make the $$ off it, well... why not take free money?

I will say I've never really had much inclination for a "crazy" vehicle, but I sure would be interested to see other people make/bring them to the game. My main interest might fall into "reasonable but not available variation on an existing vehicle"
Tho I will say space marine bikes with twin linked plasma guns instead of boltguns would be fun to have too.

Yeah, I’ve been making datasheets for various models (genestealer cult limousine, inquisitor on jetbike, xenos mercenaries, etc.) for games at home. It’s loads of fun! I just base the stats on similar things and guess the appropriate points value. Obviously I wouldn’t take them to a pickup game at a store or to a tournament…

 dadx6 wrote:
Bizarrely, you actually can just... create stuff. And then write rules for it. And then ask people if they're willing to play a friendly game against you using it.

Because the anwser would be no, especialy if they themself don't have an at least as powerful and army tailored unit already painted and ready to play with.
People that need reps will not want to play against it, coaches won't help you learn how to use the unit in most efficient manner, because they don't even do legends units and those technicaly are GW. And that is for friendly games. Anything that is a store event or higher will just have a policy of "no legends, no nothing that isn't this sesons GW FAQ and PKZ pack".

That's what the games you play with friends at home are for, not those with randoms in public places.

 catbarf wrote:
VDR was never an Official Tournament Ready rule and you never had carte blanche to make up your own vehicle and foist it on an unsuspecting pick-up opponent. It was an optional addon from an era where you were encouraged to get together with like-minded friends and make the hobby your own.

And the people I see complain about 'modeling for advantage' tend to be the sort of miserably dull player that the current game design caters to, pushing half-painted meta lists around ITC-approved layouts of identical L-shaped ruins, giving the side-eye to models that aren't the current official sculpts on the current official base size assembled exactly according to the instructions.

Nah, feth that noise. We could use more content that prioritizes creativity, Your Dudes, engagement with the hobby, and fun- no need to strip all that out because some people who prefer sterile competitive play can't handle it. It's okay to have rules that aren't tournament-approved.

Ironically, the homogeneity of the current game means that they could publish universal, fair VDR rules if they felt like it. I don't think the factions are differentiated enough anymore that "you can't give X type of unit to Y army because they're designed from the ground up to lack it!" type arguments have much weight anymore.

Karol wrote:

 dadx6 wrote:
Bizarrely, you actually can just... create stuff. And then write rules for it. And then ask people if they're willing to play a friendly game against you using it.

Because the anwser would be no, especialy if they themself don't have an at least as powerful and army tailored unit already painted and ready to play with.
People that need reps will not want to play against it, coaches won't help you learn how to use the unit in most efficient manner, because they don't even do legends units and those technicaly are GW. And that is for friendly games. Anything that is a store event or higher will just have a policy of "no legends, no nothing that isn't this sesons GW FAQ and PKZ pack".

Wow, the Warhammer store I go to even allows Legends...

That store you're talking about sounds unfun as hell.

If GW had a good person on their design team with engineering/statistics training, there would be a solid points formula that would apply to all armies by now, and no points would ever need adjusted, and then not only could there be vehicle design rules, but also unit design rules for infantry and other kinds of models, then there could be some kind of "open" division or style of play where people could make their own little kill teams or warbands or GW models that don't have 40k rules. Heck if they had hired someone like that back in 4th, they'd have probably worked out a solid points formula by 6th and then they wouldn't even need to make new editions, just revise codex's as new miniatures get released.

That's really not how points work. That's the idea behind them, but the reality is the value of things change as players adapt to one another and the value of stats and rules compound and change the value of one another. The end result is something closer to an economy, where the value of things is constantly fluctuating based on what players are taking and what players take in response.

 LunarSol wrote:
That's really not how points work. That's the idea behind them, but the reality is the value of things change as players adapt to one another and the value of stats and rules compound and change the value of one another. The end result is something closer to an economy, where the value of things is constantly fluctuating based on what players are taking and what players take in response.

No, I'm pretty sure the stats and rules of units determine how effective they are in the game, but need to be compared to other units, good vs light infantry, good vs heavy infantry, good vs vehicles, good vs monsters, etc,a ll those things on consideration, but the stats and effectiveness of each unit against these things can always be boiled down to a points formula, and you can have a fair point system to balance everything against, and yeah people will choose to do some things vs others, but what people choose shouldn't change the points values.

You can make formulas for points, but they can’t be simple ones. Good for a baseline, but needs to be playtested amd adjusted.

Some stats feed into others and make the overall unit better. WS/S/A as an example.

 Nevelon wrote:
You can make formulas for points, but they can’t be simple ones. Good for a baseline, but needs to be playtested amd adjusted.

Some stats feed into others and make the overall unit better. WS/S/A as an example.

Yup, and if GW had hired a statistician/engineer back in 4th, they'd have worked out the points formula surely by now over the last 20 years, if not at least 15 years ago.

You know, there is a reason why we still use statistics to figure out whether there will be rain tomorrow rather than a formula.

For complex problems, finding and applying a formula that should exist in theory is sometimes just not practicable.

 Jidmah wrote:
You know, there is a reason why we still use statistics to figure out whether there will be rain tomorrow rather than a formula.

For complex problems, finding and applying a formula that should exist in theory is sometimes just not practicable.

Formula can give us points for units, statistics tells us what might happen when we roll the dice.

BanjoJohn wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
You know, there is a reason why we still use statistics to figure out whether there will be rain tomorrow rather than a formula.

For complex problems, finding and applying a formula that should exist in theory is sometimes just not practicable.

Formula can give us points for units, statistics tells us what might happen when we roll the dice.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is strong with you, young padawan.

 Jidmah wrote:

BanjoJohn wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
You know, there is a reason why we still use statistics to figure out whether there will be rain tomorrow rather than a formula.

For complex problems, finding and applying a formula that should exist in theory is sometimes just not practicable.

Formula can give us points for units, statistics tells us what might happen when we roll the dice.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is strong with you, young padawan.

hey, I know what that is. I really don't know how more times I have to say it though. Yes you can do statistical derivations about strength 3 vs toughness 3, s3 vs t4, etc, etc, and combine with the statistics of the dice results.
I know that all the math behind deriving the formulas for points is not easy, but it can provide easy points tables for building units.

For example, it might end up something like..

Strength 1 is 2 points, Strength 2 is 3 points, Strength 3 is 5 points, Strength 4 is 8 points, Strength 5 is 14 points, etc, and so on and so forth.
Then you'd have your armor saves where it might be like.. Armor 6+ gives a points modifier of 90%, Armor 5+ gives a points modifier of 100%, Armor 4+ gives a modifier of 120%, etc.

You can make arguments that a boltgun is worth more points in the hands of a marine than a guardsmen, but that's why the marine costs more points than a guardsmen, and should be in the points reflected in the marine and the guardsmen, and the points for the boltgun should be the same no matter who is holding it.

I mean, I really don't think the dunning-kruger applies to me in this situation.

I think you also just have to be ready to accept potential imbalances in the end though. The combination of stats further combined with their eventual use is what brings value.

The example I always fall back on is how the "worth'" of a Drop Pod will change drastically depending on the unit/s that are riding in it.

Or imagine a army build which is your traditional gun-castle, like Guard can be. Then you have a custom unit that is simply cheap, slow, unarmed and numerous. A "pillow" troop that you just screen your castle with, consisting of hundreds of bodies.

I love the idea of "open design" play, but man I bet it would get bonkers real fast. Any point-cost formulas are going to go through the ringer.