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With me looking through threads on old editions and the old editions themselves, I've been pondering ways to try and improve some rules. Ideally with as little changes or overhauls to the core rules as possible.

So lets start with monstrous creatures first. I thought of ways to make them more equal to vehicles such as giving them a damage chart, but I don't know how to trigger it without being completely obnoxious, and would need to think of what the damages even do. I got a suggestion on discord that maybe introducing degrading stats would be helpful, so I pondered that until I came up with this idea:

OLD PROPOSED RULES


Grievous Damage

When a Monstrous creature takes a wound from a Weapon Strength 8 or higher, the opposing player must immediately roll on the Vehicle Damage Chart [pg X] and apply the results to the model that suffered the wound. If there are multiple damage tables, the roll that triggered the wound counts as a penetrating hit.

AP weapons apply their modifiers to the chart as normal. A monstrous creature loses one attack from it's attack stat if it is shaken or immobilized.

(7th edition) Gargantuan monstrous creatures ignore all results on the damage table except an explodes result. When an explodes result is rolled, the model is not removed automatically and instead takes D3 extra wounds from the attack.

If an MC that is part of a squad gets immobilized, the rest of the squad can abandon the immobilized MC. The immobilized MC is removed from the squad and made into it's own separate unit. The immobilized MC counts as destroyed at the end of the game for purposes of kill points.

--------
Thoughts?

Crippling Damage feels fine. Maybe even a little weak, since it only applies at very low Wounds.

Grievous Damage feels too low-impact. A 1/6 chance of one extra Wound dealt is not much.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Crippling Damage feels fine. Maybe even a little weak, since it only applies at very low Wounds.

Grievous Damage feels too low-impact. A 1/6 chance of one extra Wound dealt is not much.

Alright, that's fair enough. Maybe change grievous damage to "roll a die, on a 5+ it takes one wound, on a 6+ it takes 2 wounds" or something? or maybe change the die roll it happens on?

Crippling Damage can be changed too, but I wanted a blanket rule to cover everything from a 4 wound MC all the way up to a bigger MC.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Crippling Damage feels fine. Maybe even a little weak, since it only applies at very low Wounds.

Grievous Damage feels too low-impact. A 1/6 chance of one extra Wound dealt is not much.

Alright, that's fair enough. Maybe change grievous damage to "roll a die, on a 5+ it takes one wound, on a 6+ it takes 2 wounds" or something? or maybe change the die roll it happens on?

Crippling Damage can be changed too, but I wanted a blanket rule to cover everything from a 4 wound MC all the way up to a bigger MC.

If you want to make it really threatening, could do something like wounds against MCs do 1d6-6+Strength wounds, minimum 1.

So a Strength 7 Autocannon only does an extra wound on a 6, but a S9 Lascannon does 1d6-3 wounds, for a max of 3 wounds dealt.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Tiger9gamer wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Crippling Damage feels fine. Maybe even a little weak, since it only applies at very low Wounds.

Grievous Damage feels too low-impact. A 1/6 chance of one extra Wound dealt is not much.

Alright, that's fair enough. Maybe change grievous damage to "roll a die, on a 5+ it takes one wound, on a 6+ it takes 2 wounds" or something? or maybe change the die roll it happens on?

Crippling Damage can be changed too, but I wanted a blanket rule to cover everything from a 4 wound MC all the way up to a bigger MC.

If you want to make it really threatening, could do something like wounds against MCs do 1d6-6+Strength wounds, minimum 1.

So a Strength 7 Autocannon only does an extra wound on a 6, but a S9 Lascannon does 1d6-3 wounds, for a max of 3 wounds dealt.

Okay, I can see something like that. Would have to make it a chart or a paragraph then so it can be easily referenced so it doesn't interrupt gameplay too much with math. Still trying to be as lightweight as possible when it comes to these rules

Yeah, definitely.

Grievous damage:

A weapon with higher strength has a chance to do more damage to even the strongest beast. When a monstrous creature takes a wound from a weapon with strength 7 or above roll a D6 and consult the chart below;

Strength 7 weaponry: 6+: The MC loses one additional wound
Strength 8 Weaponry: 5+ The MC loses one additional wound, 6+ The MC loses two additional wound
Strength 9 and 10 Weaponry: 4+: The MC loses one additional wound, 5+ The MC Loses two additional wounds, 6+ the MC loses three additional wounds.


-----

A little more wordy than I wanted tbh, and it caps at 4+ not to make medusas and vindicators be super overpowered. Also a little too close to D weapons...

...Could also make the original rule be losing D3 wounds as well




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alright, I pondered the idea more and checked over most of the stats for monstrous creatures while I wait for thanksgiving dinner.

Most of the more common monstrous creatures in the tyranids, deamons and such only seem to have 4-5 wounds. It's only the big nasty stuff such as the Stormsurge that has 8 wounds.

So, I think that maybe the D3 way is the way to go, but combine that with the easier to wound thing;

Grievous damage:

High strength weaponry have a chance to bring down even the mightiest of beasts.

If a weapon that is strength 7 or 8 wounds a monstrous creature, roll a D6; On a 6+, the creature loses D3 more wounds.
If a Weapon that is strength 9 or 10 wounds a monstrous creature, roll a D6; On a 5+, the creature loses D3 more wounds.

JNA has provided some solid feedback. However, I'd be tempted to back up a step and reconsider the basics of your approach.

If your goal is to create more parody between monsters and vehicles, I feel like the simplest approach is just to say that whenever an MC loses a wound, you roll on the vehicle damage chart the same way you would with vehicles. The old damage chart effects all translate reasonably well onto monsters (being shaken/stunned/immobilized/etc.), and this would functionally mean that monsters work the same way that 7th edition vehicles do (hull points) just with a Toughness stat instead of AV.

I'm also not a huge fan of just... randomly having a chance to do more wounds. I get that it makes them more similar to vehicles in that you can potentially undergo the frustrating experience of having your expensive unit get one-shotted by a single lascannon, but I feel like that's one of the least fun parts of the vehicle damage system. To me, the "cool" part of the vehicle damage system is the relatively cinematic effects. Being able to blast the treads off of a tank or to get rid of one of its weapons or to create a fiery explosion that damages the things around it. Randomly doing extra damage doesn't really create those cinematic moments, but it *does* create those frustrating moments of losing your monster to the first anti-tank shot your opponent sends towards them.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
JNA has provided some solid feedback. However, I'd be tempted to back up a step and reconsider the basics of your approach.

If your goal is to create more parody between monsters and vehicles, I feel like the simplest approach is just to say that whenever an MC loses a wound, you roll on the vehicle damage chart the same way you would with vehicles. The old damage chart effects all translate reasonably well onto monsters (being shaken/stunned/immobilized/etc.), and this would functionally mean that monsters work the same way that 7th edition vehicles do (hull points) just with a Toughness stat instead of AV.

I'm also not a huge fan of just... randomly having a chance to do more wounds. I get that it makes them more similar to vehicles in that you can potentially undergo the frustrating experience of having your expensive unit get one-shotted by a single lascannon, but I feel like that's one of the least fun parts of the vehicle damage system. To me, the "cool" part of the vehicle damage system is the relatively cinematic effects. Being able to blast the treads off of a tank or to get rid of one of its weapons or to create a fiery explosion that damages the things around it. Randomly doing extra damage doesn't really create those cinematic moments, but it *does* create those frustrating moments of losing your monster to the first anti-tank shot your opponent sends towards them.

Alright I can see that, yea, thanks for the advice

the vehicle damage table would be a good use case, and if I'm already writing rules I could easily attach some extra rules to the damage table, buuut there are some problems that would have to be addressed I feel when it comes to MC's with that.

how would weapons destroyed or immobilized work? just remove a piece of wargear from a model? how would it work for squads of MC's like tyranids have or taghmata has in HH1 when one is immobilized? just have the whole squad stuck? or would you abandon the MC and make a whole new squad of an MC that the player has to deal with?

MC's are also marginally tougher than vehicles already just by grace of having an armor save and invuln, and often times have psychic powers to buff them further. The only real way to interact with them as an opponent is to remove wounds, so adding more wounds on top of that seems like a light weight rule that's easy to remember for anti-tank, considering it's just one extra die roll and you're done, no extra tokens required.

buuuuuuuuut, if we make it so Strength 8+ weapons trigger this effect, it could remove some of the headache and make it on par with vehicles, and could be a good way to show anti-tank weapons...

Alright, may need to think on it more.

how would weapons destroyed or immobilized work? just remove a piece of wargear from a model? how would it work for squads of MC's like tyranids have or taghmata has in HH1 when one is immobilized? just have the whole squad stuck? or would you abandon the MC and make a whole new squad of an MC that the player has to deal with?

The short answer is, "the same way it works for vehicles."

If you get a weapon destroyed result, it means that the carnifex just lost its venom cannon or the wraith lord just lost its ghost glaive. I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually worry about removing individual guns or limbs form a vehicle, and I don't think you'd need to do so for monsters either.

Immobilized works for MCs the same way it does for vehicles. Which will vary on the edition, but iirc most editions I played basically just had you destroy the immobilized model unless the squad held still.

MC's are also marginally tougher than vehicles already just by grace of having an armor save and invuln, and often times have psychic powers to buff them further. The only real way to interact with them as an opponent is to remove wounds, so adding more wounds on top of that seems like a light weight rule that's easy to remember for anti-tank, considering it's just one extra die roll and you're done, no extra tokens required.

You do you. I just don't think randomly doing bonus damage really adds much to the game. Anti-tank weapons are already decent into monsters in 3rd-7th by virtue of wounding more often and generally bypassing armor saves. So just having a random chance of needing one fewer lascannon shots to kill a carnifex doesn't really change any game behaviors or create new interesting choices; it just makes monsters die faster. Which is fine if that's what you're going for.

Using the vehicle damage chart, on the other hand, means you can end up with monsters that can't reposition, monsters that might lose an important gun, monsters that have to hide for a turn as they recover from shaken/stunned, *and* creates a non-zero chance that they'll die faster (explodes/wrecked result) if that's what you're into.

I agree with wyldhunt.

If these problems can be handled with vehicles there's no reason they couldn't also apply to monsters.

There's no fundamental reason a vehicle needs to be represented with the ability to lose a weapon while a monster must retain theirs until death. The both fulfill similar army roles and act as larger support units.

Imo a rhino has far less reason to need to determine if it loses its storm bolter than a hive tyrant does it's venom cannon. But one must do this because it's a vehicle while the other doesn't.

Vehicles have a different kind of resilience depending on their av. They aren't affected by the extra 6+ to wound that damage has - s5 just can't hurt av12, while s5 can hurt t8 (which is mathematically equivalent). s7 wounds t10 on a 6, but can't hurt av 14 at all.

They don't need a save if they can't be wounded in the first place.

There's no lesser or greater chance a track is blown off than a leg, so having the table apply to both makes sense to me.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
...So the overall, the new rules gives out an additional token to wounded monsters and 1 extra die roll.


Thoughts?

Doesn't feel very simulationist or cinematic and as such feels out of place in the long rulebooks of those editions that were trying to create simulations and cinematic fight. One problem with the vehicle damage table is the assumption that there is a crew, which is then fixed by having special rules that modified that assumption, but painting every monster with the same brush is not going to be very fair without a bunch of exceptions. Fix the handful of misclassified unit types like the OP new units from 5th and 6th and I don't think monsters are too unfair. I really wish monsters didn't die to instant death, Grey Knights being the anti-Monster faction instead of the anti-Daemon faction was dumb as heck, something to consider if you wanted to buff monsters in return for giving them some kind of downside to make them more like vehicles.

Alright, You're all convincing me for the vehicle damage table idea.

So going to keep the roll limited higher strength weaponry only so an MC doesn't get stunned locked by mass bolter fire.

should AP add a number to the chart like it does for vehicles?

It's probably fine to let AP add to the chart. For one thing, fewer differences in how things work between monsters and vehicles means it's easier for people to remember. For another, weapons being particularly good at piercing through armor to reach vital machinery seems like it should also make them good at piercing through and reaching vital organs.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
It's probably fine to let AP add to the chart. For one thing, fewer differences in how things work between monsters and vehicles means it's easier for people to remember. For another, weapons being particularly good at piercing through armor to reach vital machinery seems like it should also make them good at piercing through and reaching vital organs.

Alright, fair enough! With this I could probably remove the debuff I proposed at the start too.


Grievous Damage

When a Monstrous creature takes a wound from a Weapon Strength 8 or higher, the opposing player must immediately roll on the Vehicle Damage Chart [pg X] and apply the results to the model that suffered the wound. If there are multiple damage tables, the roll that triggered the wound counts as a penetrating hit.

AP weapons apply their modifiers to the chart as normal. If a shaken or stunned is rolled, subtract 1 from the attack characteristics for purposes of assault.

If an MC that is part of a squad gets immobilized, the rest of the squad can abandon the immobilized MC. The immobilized MC is removed from the squad and made into it's own separate unit. The immobilized MC counts as destroyed at the end of the game for purposes of kill points.

---------------

now my question is, should shaken / stunned affect WS or melee at all?

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
now my question is, should shaken / stunned affect WS or melee at all?

Same as a walker, I don't remember how they were affected. Did they get attacked in the rear when immobilized or something? So many damn rules and I might be hallucinating like an AI since it's been so long.

Yeah treating MCs as walkers is the simplest and most reflective method, because they basically are.

Things like wraithlords, dreadknights and even daemons and c'tan aren't flesh and blood so their damage would work more like walkers.

only tyranids truly have monstrous CREATURES with real sinew, blood and metabolisms that might be affected by damage in a way contrary to a machine.

But even then, you can still blow a leg off, or cripple a gun.

Alright, that's fair. if that's the case, should gargantuan monstrous creatures function in the same way as superheavy walkers? cause unfortunately that makes things like the wraithknight still overtuned compared to the rest of the monstrous creatures.

Gargantuan/superheavy units should probably just not be included in the game, tbh.

But if you're worried about wraithknights specifically but think the mechanic works for the vast majority of other cases, just apply the mechanic broadly and then find a fix for wraith knights specifically. Up their points. Nerf their rules. Whatever makes sense. No need to twist the rule to fit their disruptive presence.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Alright, that's fair. if that's the case, should gargantuan monstrous creatures function in the same way as superheavy walkers? cause unfortunately that makes things like the wraithknight still overtuned compared to the rest of the monstrous creatures.

Some units are just undercosted, don't worry too much, your job is making cool rules that don't make the game a chore.

Alright, fair enough! then gargantuan creatures would work like superheavy walkers, no other results aside from explodes matter.

Can kneecap the wraithknight and storm surge with some other time lol

Alright, new question; Should artillery also have to roll on the damage table?

I would just say that any vehicle or MC/GC that is damaged roles on the tables using the same mechanics.

ordnance, AP1 (depending on edition) etc all work the same way.

I think I would have to re-write a bit of the damage chart... Cause honestly how should I word it if the artillery piece loses a weapon or gets immobilized? does it just get destroyed?

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
I think I would have to re-write a bit of the damage chart... Cause honestly how should I word it if the artillery piece loses a weapon or gets immobilized? does it just get destroyed?

If you're using 3rd-7th as a baseline, I probably wouldn't have the damage chart apply to artillery. Artillery pieces in 40k are usually closer to like, heavy weapon teams than tanks. How exactly I'd handle them would probably depend on what the wound allocation system you're using looks like. In some systems, having the crew (separate models) be a "weak spot" that can be killed in lieu of finishing off the gun itself could be an interesting mechanic. Ex: if you're using randomized or evenly distributed wound allocation, then you're generally going to be killing off the crew rather than getting through all the gun's wounds. Or in a system where the closest models die first, positioning yourself to go after the crew can be a good reward for taking the time to set up tactical positioning.

I feel like using the damage chart just doesn't fit very well against something like a vaul's wrath support battery. The relatively low durability (compared to a tank) means you're going to be rolling on the table frequently. Shaken, stunned, and weapon destroyed all basically make the artillery useless, as do wrecked/explodes (obviously). Immobilized usually does basically nothing making it a non-result. So using the damage chart here feels like it would basically just result in artillery units being easily stunlocked every turn until they eventually die. Whereas a monster/vehicle could potentially still be throwing its weight around even if shaken, tend to have redundant weapons to make weapon destroyed less of an automatic shut-down, can potentially charge/tank shock, and typically have better movement than artillery pieces meaning they can reliably reposition and hide for a turn.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
I think I would have to re-write a bit of the damage chart... Cause honestly how should I word it if the artillery piece loses a weapon or gets immobilized? does it just get destroyed?

If you're using 3rd-7th as a baseline, I probably wouldn't have the damage chart apply to artillery. Artillery pieces in 40k are usually closer to like, heavy weapon teams than tanks. How exactly I'd handle them would probably depend on what the wound allocation system you're using looks like. In some systems, having the crew (separate models) be a "weak spot" that can be killed in lieu of finishing off the gun itself could be an interesting mechanic. Ex: if you're using randomized or evenly distributed wound allocation, then you're generally going to be killing off the crew rather than getting through all the gun's wounds. Or in a system where the closest models die first, positioning yourself to go after the crew can be a good reward for taking the time to set up tactical positioning.

I feel like using the damage chart just doesn't fit very well against something like a vaul's wrath support battery. The relatively low durability (compared to a tank) means you're going to be rolling on the table frequently. Shaken, stunned, and weapon destroyed all basically make the artillery useless, as do wrecked/explodes (obviously). Immobilized usually does basically nothing making it a non-result. So using the damage chart here feels like it would basically just result in artillery units being easily stunlocked every turn until they eventually die. Whereas a monster/vehicle could potentially still be throwing its weight around even if shaken, tend to have redundant weapons to make weapon destroyed less of an automatic shut-down, can potentially charge/tank shock, and typically have better movement than artillery pieces meaning they can reliably reposition and hide for a turn.

That’s fair, yea, I dunno, I always felt it was all but useless to shoot artillery in 7th because their profile was so damn tough. It’s a T7 model with 3W and a 3+ save, making it far tougher than a normal artillery tank would be, and if I recall correctly, you use the guns toughness all the time. I kinda want to give a reason for shooting at it with heavy weapons like I did with monstrous creatures.

An easy approach there, then, would be to say that weapons with a Strength of X or higher always get applied to the gun itself. So you still have to get through all those wounds, but you don't "lose" shots to randomly hitting the crew instead.

But it really just depends on how you're handling the rest of your artillery targeting rules. If there are ways to meaningfully go after the crew instead of the gun, then the durability of the gun is a feature not a bug, and the intended counterplay is to line up attacks on the crew via positioning, melee, etc.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
An easy approach there, then, would be to say that weapons with a Strength of X or higher always get applied to the gun itself. So you still have to get through all those wounds, but you don't "lose" shots to randomly hitting the crew instead.

But it really just depends on how you're handling the rest of your artillery targeting rules. If there are ways to meaningfully go after the crew instead of the gun, then the durability of the gun is a feature not a bug, and the intended counterplay is to line up attacks on the crew via positioning, melee, etc.

Fair enough! I do like that idea for the high strength shots hitting the gun, maybe capping a cover save if any so the gun itself is not incredibly tough, but that might be too far. Could still use the gun's toughness for weaker shots, but maybe have it so those shots always goes after the crew.

Trying to think of ways to mitigate the artillery model vs vehicle thing as much as possible honestly. Cause even in a friendly and narrative list, I find myself asking "why the hell should I take basilisk when an earth shaker gun is just so much more tough?"

Well, again, in some editions the crew were a major weak point. There's a reason you weren't exactly seeing eldar support weapons dominating tables every edition.

If melee or other targeting rules let you guarantee at least a few wounds will go onto the crew, then suddenly melee bypasses that artillery toughness and wipes out the usually very squishy crew without a problem. If wounds are allocated to the closest model first, then a deepstriking or otherwise mobile unit can probably line up some pot shots from behind the gun and wipe out the crew easily. If Jaws of the World Wolf or similar exists, the low movement of the artillery is a big liability. If wound allocation is randomized and you include a rule to resolve shots that hit the crew against the toughness of the crew, then bolters are often enough to take down an artillery piece.

It has been a while, but I feel like the toughness of the artillery tended to not be very relevant because I almost always ended up just going after the crew in most editions.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Well, again, in some editions the crew were a major weak point. There's a reason you weren't exactly seeing eldar support weapons dominating tables every edition.

If melee or other targeting rules let you guarantee at least a few wounds will go onto the crew, then suddenly melee bypasses that artillery toughness and wipes out the usually very squishy crew without a problem. If wounds are allocated to the closest model first, then a deepstriking or otherwise mobile unit can probably line up some pot shots from behind the gun and wipe out the crew easily. If Jaws of the World Wolf or similar exists, the low movement of the artillery is a big liability. If wound allocation is randomized and you include a rule to resolve shots that hit the crew against the toughness of the crew, then bolters are often enough to take down an artillery piece.

It has been a while, but I feel like the toughness of the artillery tended to not be very relevant because I almost always ended up just going after the crew in most editions.

I'm going to have to say I had the complete opposite experiences. Artillery was bubble wrapped, no good way to deep strike close enough or get close enough to shoot the crew with directional fire, ect. I get what you're saying though, and would have to think about it more, especially in a wound allocation system.