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Since Monstrous Creatures (MC) are better in every way than their vehicular counterparts, I was thinking a good fix would be to create a damage table for MC's that would tone them down a little and also be rather characterful.  Here's an initial pass I wanted to throw out there for discussion.  Tell me what you think.

When a MC takes a wound, roll a D6 and consult the following table:

1:  No additional effect.
2: Shaken: MC can not shoot next turn.
3: Stunned; MC can not move or shoot next turn.
4: Arm/Weapon Destroyed: One weapon is destroyed (chosen by attacker).
5: Critical Hit: MC take an additional wound.
6: Very Critical Hit: MC takes an additional D6 wounds.

Any suggestions?  Do you think this would balance them out or have I gone too far.  Another idea is that after a wound you roll a die and on a 4+ you consult the chart (though in that case I would make option 1 and 2 both Shaken).

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Okay, so what happens with Nyds who have regen?

So let me get this straight. A lone ranger of a space wolf pulls out his bolter and fires a single round at my Avatar. He apparently got very lucky, and struck the Avatar in the big toe. The Avatar blows up in a torrent of twisted metal and magma after quite eloquently stating "Ow..."

Avatar falls over dead, and that lone space marine has now earned a $200 christmas bonus and a all-expense paid trip to Catachan.

I like the fact that you're trying to find balance and all, but I think you're over-correcting just a bit much. Perhaps what you should have instead is...

1: No additional effect
2: No additional effect
3: No additional effect
4: Monstrous Creature is Shaken.
5: Monstrous Creature is Stunned.
6: Monstrous Creature loses one weapon at the choice of the attacker.

That's a little bit les extreme. Also, it's slightly more logical. Can a single round from a bolter theoretically slay a Carnifex? Sure. Are the odds about 16% of it happening? Heck no. It's such a small likelihood that we can pretty much discount the chance altogether. Now can the round strike a sensitive area that leaves the creature stunned? Sure. In fact, that's a pretty decent chance. Is it possible for the round to strike the giant weapon it's lugging around? Yup. It more than likely wouldn't destroy the weapon, but it would essentially count the creature as shaken. On the off chance it could destroy/jam/neutralize the weapon you can do so by rolling a 6 on the above table.

I can understand why you might say a Lascannon deals 2 wounds to something it strikes, but weapons that would barely ever hurt it anyways? I just don't see it. It's safer to stick with the 1 wound system provided to us, and the instakill for exceptionally powerful weapons.

Now, if a bolter can stun a Carnifex... Is it reasonable to say that it could stun a Character with multiple wounds as well?

Under our revisited rules we have actually implemented (and tested) a montrous creature damage table.

It only works for weapons that are S7 or higher (IE limits the possible bolter situation)
Roll on the chart below when an armour save has been failed.

The table is

D6 Result
1 One wound is inflicted against the Walker or Monstrous Creature.
2 One wound is inflicted against the Walker or Monstrous Creature.
3 One wound is inflicted against the Walker or Monstrous Creature.
4 One wound is inflicted against the Walker or Monstrous Creature and the model cannot Shoot in the next Shooting Phase.
5 One wound is inflicted against the Walker or Monstrous Creature. The model cannot Shoot in the next Shooting Phase and its Movement Allowance for each Phase is halved in the next turn:
? Walkers may Move 3? and Assault 3? or Run 6?; and
? Monstrous Creatures may Move 3?, Run 1.5?, Assault 3? and Fleet (if applicable) is 3?).
Additionally, any Difficult Terrain rolls are halved.
6 D3 wounds are inflicted against the Walker or Monstrous Creature.


It seems to work reasonably,
but doesn't destroy mean that you never will take a daemon prince again.

@EvilTeaSociety

A bolter can destroy a Dreadnought, why couldn't it kill a Carnifex. To change your story, instead of the big toe, insert head and yes, it is entirely feasible that a single Bolter in could kill a MC.

Plus, your 16% is horribly wrong. Its 16% once the bolter has hit, wounded, and the Carnifex has failed its armor save and the player rolls a 3 or more on a D6. I'm no statistician, but that is much, much less than 16%. Indeed, I believe its much less than a bolter's chance against the rear armor of a Dreadnought!

Maybe change a 6 result to a D3(+1) instead to tone it down.

@Vero: They can still regen wounds, same that a Techmarine can repair a vehicle's mobility and weapons.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

@Ozymandias

You're right, I was only working from the 16% off of the table and not against the entire Shooting phase. So I checked the math against your house rules and posted the results below.

The avatar will be destroyed 1/4 as often as a Dreadnought if the dreadnought is shot from behind by a Space Marine carrying a bolter: .46% vs. 1.85% (approximate, think I did my math correctly). The Dreadnought can't be destroyed from the front (or sides if I remember correctly) by a bolter round. The avatar still has that .46%. So unless you're behind the Dreadnought the Dreadnought has a much higher survivability rate. A Sentinel would have 1/4 of the surivability that an Avatar does from all sides.

I'm going to try a S8 missile from a marine next. 66.6% chance of hitting either a Sentinel or an Avatar. The avatar is wounded 5/6 times: 55.5%. Then it has a 1/6 chance of dealing a multiple wound hit: 9.26%. Then it has a 1/2 chance of making its save: 4.13% Then it has a 1/2 chance (roll of 4,5, or 6) of dealing the five wounds (I think it has 5 anyways) it takes to kill the Avatar: 2.06%. The Sentinel gets a touch trickier. The Sentinel has the same odds of being hit: 66.6%. It has a 1/6 chance of being glanced on that strike:11.1% (cumulative); and a 3/6 chance of being penetrated: 33.3% (cumulative). After that the glancing shot has a 1/6 chance of destroying the Sentinel: 1.85% (cumulative); and a 1/2 chance if the shot penetrated: 16.6% (cumulative); Add the Penetrating and Glancing results together and you get:

Avatar w/ bolter: .46%
Avatar w/ missile: 2.06%
Sentinel w/ bolter: 1.85%
Sentinel w/ missile: 18.45%
Land Raider w/ missile: 1.85%

Hence, you're absolutely right and the Avatar is far more survivable with weapons that can penetrate armor. I don't know what the point values add up to, though I can't imagine it goes out of scale. So you're right, in this regard it's not unreasonable.

On the flipside, and this is my real beef with the rules you've put out, why wouldn't a bolter round then cause multiple wounds to an IG Colonel? We have rules for high powered weapons like missiles and plasma: Instant Kill. But if a bolter can dish out potentially 7 wounds to an Avatar, why can't it instantly kill an IG Colonel, or Abaddon? With the system we have now, better to let it be IMHO.

Posted By Makaleth on 09/12/2007 8:12 PM
Under our revisited rules we have actually implemented (and tested) a montrous creature damage table.

It only works for weapons that are S7 or higher (IE limits the possible bolter situation)
Roll on the chart below when an armour save has been failed.

The table is

D6 Result
1 One wound is inflicted against the Walker or Monstrous Creature.
2 One wound is inflicted against the Walker or Monstrous Creature.
3 One wound is inflicted against the Walker or Monstrous Creature.
4 One wound is inflicted against the Walker or Monstrous Creature and the model cannot Shoot in the next Shooting Phase.
5 One wound is inflicted against the Walker or Monstrous Creature. The model cannot Shoot in the next Shooting Phase and its Movement Allowance for each Phase is halved in the next turn:
• Walkers may Move 3” and Assault 3” or Run 6”; and
• Monstrous Creatures may Move 3”, Run 1.5”, Assault 3” and Fleet (if applicable) is 3&rdquo .
Additionally, any Difficult Terrain rolls are halved.
6 D3 wounds are inflicted against the Walker or Monstrous Creature.


It seems to work reasonably,
but doesn't destroy mean that you never will take a daemon prince again.

I think this is a much more reasonable plan. The big thing is that vehichles can shrug off just a lot of weapons in the game... for instance armor 14 can't be touched by anything under str 8... with exception to rending weapons. Requiring the strength of the weapon to be above str 7 to cause extra damage sounds much more in balance. Also, I am at odds that this really needs to be fixed. Sure, 1 lascannon hit can destroy a landraider.... but chances are that it's going to take 10 lascannon hits.... possibly more... to take one of those things down. In comparison, 4 lascannon hits can kill a carnifex.... sure, there's a 1/6 chance that each hit doesn't wound... but chances are four hits equals a dead carnifex.... even two carnifexes go down in 8 lascannon hits, where as each hit has a 2/6 chance to glance, and a 1/6 chance to penetrate landraider.... resulting in 1.667 penetrating and 1.667 glancing hits. Out of the glancing, there is only a 1/6 chance to destroy the landraider, resulting in .278 landraider destructions. Out of the penetrating hits, there's a .5 chance to destroy the landraider, resulting in .889 landraider deaths. This adds up to be a total of 1.167 landraider deaths out of 10 lascannon hits. Compare this to 10 lascannon hits causing 8.334 wounds two carnifexes resulting in 2.0833 deaths. Now out of 5 lascannon hits on one carnifex, we find that it results in 1.041 carnifex deaths, meaning that the carnifex is only slightly less killable than the landraider... and when you consider the fact that bolterfire and plasma can damage the carnifex and not the landraider.... it would appear that MC and vehichles are balanced.

Except it only takes one glancing hit or one penetrating hit to render the vehicle useless for a turn. The real problem isn't killability, the real problem is that an MC will operate at full capacity until killed and that is not the case with vehicles.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Isn't that the case with all characters though, monstrous or not? In order to revise those rules, they'd have to revise all rules to all models with more than one wound, which would make everyones characters a lot worse... which would mean point reductions.... it goes on and on... it's best to leave such things alone.

It would be far better to make vehicles more survivable, than to nerf MCs. MCs are fine the way they are. Note the discussions in the Chaos Codex threads about how easy it will be to kill off double Lash Princes. Sure, Nidzilla causes problems, but no more than Tau Air Force or Mech Eldar causes problems.

Make all glancing hits to vehicles cause minor, although cumulative, damage (eg 1-3 shaken and destroy a defensive weapon; 4-6 stunned and reduce top speed by 50%). Change shaken/stunned so they don't apply to defensive weapons, so that even stunned vehicles can do *something*. Allow only penetrating hits to actually rip off main weapons or outright destroy a vehicle (eg 1-2 Main weapon destroyed; 3-4 Immobilized; 5 Destroyed; 6 Explodes).

The cumulative damage thing will slow down skimmers until they can be penned, and reduce the problem of unkillable skimmers.

the best resolution to this problem, im my mind, is to leave MC's alone and give vehicles wounds and toughness. Then everything is equal.

it is a tough question though. In my game two nights ago, i had a command squad of IG with 4 melta guns chasing a Russ and shooting it at close range fo 5 turns and I never destroyed it. Just plain bad luck. But the same thing against an MC and it would have been dead on turn two.

but, an MC in cover and shooting, will last the whole game and never loses efficiency until it is dead. A vehicl gets glanced and it drops to almost 0% efficiency. it is blatantly unequal, and when compared to the fact that a vehicle is often more points, it becomes laughable.

Posted By Angron on 09/13/2007 3:22 PM
Isn't that the case with all characters though, monstrous or not? In order to revise those rules, they'd have to revise all rules to all models with more than one wound, which would make everyones characters a lot worse... which would mean point reductions.... it goes on and on... it's best to leave such things alone.

Not really as MC's are really the equivalent of Vehicles.  Characters can be insta-killed by things double their toughness so its not a big deal with them.  Plus, you don't see 5-6 characters in a 2,000 point game like you do MC's.

I never think its best to leave things alone when they are broken.  They need to be fixed.  The sheer dominance of Nidzilla is testament to how powerful MC's are.  Try comparing a SniperFex to a Dreadnought and you'll see how they don't even compare (yet they are not far off in points).

Ozymandias, King of Kings

you are right, the rules for vehicles in general need to be revised.

the only other good vehicles are those that ignore parts of the damage table or greatly reduce the odds of being destroyed, such as falcons, hammerheads, possessed vehicles, etc.

standard vehicles are a points sink, the only ones that are any good are those you can tak cheaply or those you can take en masse like IG.

We actually changed the dynamic of the dreadnaught because of this arguement,
we changed it to T8 3 Wounds with a 3+ save.

Very tough.
but with the table I had already described they are easier to deal with,

We also have reduced the price of vehicles (generally) but the upgrades (which make them good are expensive)


Also,
I think it's the access to to many of these types (MCs and Vehicles) are the reason those armies are powerful, it's because generalist and most armies have to pre plan for them to really be effective.

Basically walkers and monstrous creatures in our rules range from small (Sentinel = T4(5) W2 Sv4+) to really bit (Carnifex = T8 W5 Sv2+ when fully upgraded). Both are affected by the damage chart already posted by Malaketh. Additionally Walkers/MCs can either move 6", shoot, and then assault 6" or just move 12" and shoot, but no assault.

It's worked very well.

BYE