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So, trying to come up with yet another way to fix vehicles in 40k.

Main problems: 
1) Skimmers moving fast are too hard to kill vs ground tanks. 
2) Ground tanks pop too easily to a single lucky shot. 
3) The heaviest tanks are almost invulnerable to some armies (eg Orks with no Zzzap gunz, Crusader vs Eldar/DE, Monolith vs anyone but Imperials and Nids)

Solution to problem #2 is pretty easy.  Remove the 'vehicle destroyed' from the glancing table.  I would also like to see more 'gradual damage' so I'd remove some of the shaken/stunned results and have more 'weapon destroyed' or speed penalties.

Part of problems #1 and #2 could be ameliorated by making 'skimmers moving fast' a 'saving throw' of 4+ or 3+ - and apply an identical save to obscured/hulldown ground vehicles.  Adding a gradual speed reduction to the glancing tables would also reduce the invulnerability of skimmers - at some point their speed would drop to less than that required for 'moving fast' and they could be pen'd.

A solution to the other two problems could be to give vehicles 2 AVs on each facing - a glancing AV, and a penetrating AV.

It always struck me as odd that there was only a spread of 1 strength unit or AV between getting a Pen or a Glance.  I thought the spread should be larger.

One could get really complicated, and give each vehicle different GlanceAV and PenAVs to represent different aspects.  eg, the LandRaider/LRBT could have a front GlanceAV of 11, but a PenAV of 15 (same as current) or even 16.
Whereas an Eldar Falcon might keep its glanceAV of 13, and PenAV of 14.  A Sentinel would be glanceAV10, but PenAV12.

A simpler idea would be to increase the spread on all AVs to 2.  If the glancing table were reduced in severity, this could be done in concert with reducing AVs by 1 across the board.  So, a Falcon would be AV12 on the front, but you'd still need a 14 to pen it (12+2 = 14).  An LRBT or LandRaider would be AV13, but still need a 15 to pen.

The biggest problem with the simple approach would be that AV10 vehicles would drop to AV9 and therefore be glanceable with lasguns...

Part of softening the glancing table should include taking away the "can't move and/or can't shoot at all for one turn", and making more permanent but minor damage.  We could still have 'stunned' effects nerf the vehicle's main weapon for a turn, but allow firing of defensive weapons (which seems reasonable).

EG:  New Glancing Hits Table
1: Crew Shaken - if move next turn, can only fire Defensive Weapons that turn
2: Crew Shaken - if move next turn, can only fire Defensive Weapons that turn
3: Defensive Weapon Destroyed
4: Defensive Weapon Destroyed
5: Max Speed reduced by 50%
6: Max Speed reduced by 50%

Once all defensive weapons are destroyed and the tank is Immobilized or speed reduced to zero, then further results of those types would be applied as Main Weapon Destroyed, followed by Vehicle Destroyed.

If a skimmer gets its speed reduced from 100% to 0% the turn after it moved fast, it is destroyed.

Vehicle mods and attributes like open-topped, holofields, spirit stones, extra armour etc. could be a +1 or -1 modifier on the table (like open-topped is now)
Thoughts?

I like your new damage table, but I have a suggestion about armor values:

What if, instead of modifying the AV, all vehicles with AV 12 or higher on at least one facing had 1 structure point? Just an idea, but how would it change the survivability of certain units? (skimmers would NOT get a structure point, since they are more fragile and thin-skinned in order to fly)

CK

I personally like it but like most of the other posts I have seen on the subject I think it is excessively complicated.

I think the ideal would be to have vehicles have wounds (or call them whatever the heck you want)

Instead of having glance and pen, have an AV and anything over that knocks off that many wounds.

(Note, the next bit is TOTALLY ill thought out but it gets the basic point across)

Land Raider has lets say 3 wounds with an AV 14.
Railhead hits it, gets a 4: causes 1 wound, gets a 5: causes two wounds, gets a 6: causes 3 wounds.

Then you can drop in saves for terrain or moving fast.

Anyway, just a thought.

Meh...I really don't like the idea of wounds for vehicles. I like the fact that vehicles are treated differently than MCs and infantry. In fact, I'm trying to make them even *more* different by introducing the 'gradual damage' thing.

I really think that tanks should be able to lumber around for a while, weathering tons of fire, but having their weapons shot off and gradually slowing down until they're stuck in the mud with only one gun, until that gets shot off and the thing finally explodes or shuts down. That's really what I'm aiming for.

I really dislike that on the current glancing table: either the tank can't shoot at all for one turn, then is fine; or something devastating happens (main weapon gone, immobilized, destroyed). That's why on my new table, 33% of the time the tank's firing is lessened (but not reduced to nil - they can either fire only their defensive weapons on the move, or stop to stabilize their main gun), and the rest of the time their is a non-devastating but cumulative damage effect.

You're right though, the double AV thing is too complicated, especially with different AVs on front/sides/rear.

I could see the structure point thing being worthwhile, but maybe not *that* good. How about giving all vehicles an "Internal Structure Point" that only applies to Penetrating Hits? Could represent the extra armour around the vital bits of a vehicle (engine/ammo/crew). So even a Land Raider could be glanced all over the place, but you'd need two good penetrating hits to nail it.

That would also make transports somewhat more survivable and worthwhile.

While in our rules we gave Walkers wounds (and made them similar in style to the Eldar Wraithlord), vehicles we kept with armour values. Our damage tables are basically:

Glance
1 - No Effect (the shot glances off the armour, but otherwise does nothing)
2 - Shaken on 4+
3 - Stunned on 4+
4 - Stunned
5 - Weapon Destroyed 1-3/Immobilised 4-6
6 - Roll on the Penetrating Chart

Penetrating
1 - Stunned
2 - Weapon Destroyed & Shaken
3 - Immobilised & Shaken
4-5 - Destroyed.
6 - Explodes

Ordnance
1 - Stunned.
2 - Weapon Destroyed & Stunned
3 - Immobilised & Stunned
4 - Destroyed.
5 - Explodes
6 - Annihilated

We ditched the whole 'obscured 4+' nonsese and went back to the 3rd Ed Hull Down, but we made the system beatable. The biggest problem with 3rd Ed Hull Down was it was all or nothing. A Hull Down vehicle was always Hull Down.

Instead we simply make it that penetration rolls that come up with a 6 count as penetrating even when Hull Down, unless of course the weapon would not normally be able to Penetrate (eg. S8 vs AV14). So a Hull Down Leman Russ vs a Railgun would be Glanced on a 4-5 and Penetrated on a 6 and a Multi-Laser vs a Hull Down Chimera would still only Glance on a 6, as it would not normally be allowed to Penetrate AV12. This rule also applied to Skimmers Moving Fast, Smoke Launchers, Kustom-Force Fieldz and the like.

BYE

I *really* like the 'pen on a 6' for skimmers moving fast and for hull-down/smoked vehicles. Simple and gives a small but achievable chance to pen, without needing an extra 'saving throw' type thing. Excellent fix!

Eldar players might not like certain things about it: eg, a Falcon's front armour is normally glanced on a 5+ and pen'd on a 6 when plinked by an autocannon or plasmagun. A Faclon moving fast under HMBC's ruling would also be glanced on a 5+ and pen's on a 6. The 'skimmer moving fast' rule would effectively only diminish the effect of powerful weapons that would normally pen on a 5+ or better

I still think the damage table results need to be qualitatively changed. The 'stunned on a 4+' etc. I don't like so much, as it means that a lot of the time a glancing hit does absolutely nothing. And I really don't like the 'roll on the penetrating table' on a 6, as you get back to the single shot popping (now exploding!) of heavy tanks again.

Thanks for your input HMBC, I think I need to go read your 40kRRV again. Have you guys put together any more codices in the past 6 months or so?

Strangelooper

That was exactly the intended effect. As an Eldar player, I stand by these rules changes, even if my skimmers do take something of a hit :-)

As for the reduction in the Glancing Hits Chart, that was rather deliberate. We wanted to emphasise that glancing hits are actualy *glancing* as opposed to being mini-penetrating. What the system essentially achieves is a shift away from multiple-shot, lower strength weaponry over to higher strength, one shot weaponry (for most part). Multilasers for instance are still excellent anti-AV 12 weapons en masse as they are now, but it removed the silliness of only needing a few glancing hits to *destroy* a Wave Serpent.

Statistically, being able to penetrate on a 6 makes vehicles (including skimmers moving fast) more vulnerable, but it seems to work. We've playtested the system for a few years now, and we've found that skimmer (and vehicles generally) durability seems about right.

We have been progressing on the various Codices, however Codex Eldar Revisited is due for a large rewrite due to the 4th ed Codex (much to stea...ummm...borrow :-)

The first draft of the Chaos Codex is basically done, as is Orks. Tau are in their second revision. I'm in the process of writing the first draft of the Guard Codex as we speak. Tyranids are done to my satisfaction and are now undergoing playtesting.

BYE

Good to hear, my armies are Guard, Nids and Death Guard. Does your Chaos RRV dex include the dedicated army variants, or is it straight Black Legion?

I'll have to see if I can find some local players who are willing to dilute their 'official tourney-oriented game practicing-brain' to try out the RRV rules.

Can you PM me the links again? I downloaded everything about 6-8 months ago, but if you've updated the RRV nids codex I'll need to d/l the new version.

Thanks for making all of your hard work available! You rock.

Oo...Could I possibly get access to those revised rules? Some friends and I are trying to do revisions for our group, and it'd help to see what other people have come up with. Thanks.

HFJor

Send an email to milesteg@mac.com and I'll send the latest version of the rule book your way :-)

Same for anyone else who wants it. We usually put links up when we are doing a release, but we still have a few things to iron out right now... (new Eldar Codex = new things to incorporate in Codex Eldar Revisited, etc).

I would definitely be interested in that, although I'm content to wait until you've finished up.

Out of curiosity, do you have a website that you upload this stuff to?

CK

HFJor and Stangelooper

Have emailed you what I've got right now re: your requests (HBMC, I don't have the latest Chaos or Tyranid documents. Can you send them my way? :-)

Corpsman

We have usually found somewhere to upload it to, but we are always open to new options.....

Thanks Milesteq!

Got them in my email, thanks milesteq

Hmm. Well, one thing i've always idly wondered about is making vehicles much harder to kill, but allowing more ways of killing them. Specifically, things like troops jamming stuff in the drive mechanism, or shooting through vision slits. Maybe ripping open a hatch and dropping a 'nade in there.

Having a little familiarity with the 2nd edition rules, it all depends upon what scale of game you are talking about.

If a standard game involves 1, 2 or perhaps 3 vehicles at most per side, then having more complex vehicle rules ala 2nd edition can work very well (like crew members bailing out, each vehicle having its own customised damage table, hitting different sections of the vehicle (hull, tracks, turret, etc) and so on.

However, for 3rd/4th edition 40K this would quickly become unmanageable. Imagine an Armoured Company, mechanised Tau/Eldar (and a few other similar forces). It would become hideously complex and often more complicated rules require more bookkeeping.

So, is it a small skirmish game or more of a company-level combat system that you're after? This function will dictate the form of the rules......