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As Vehicles aren't allowed to fire on Overwatch, I would suggest to permit it for vehicles but only with Defensive Weapons, like the pintle mounted bolters, combi-wp and so on, as long as they are beneath Strenght 4 and they are not Heavy Weapons. I agree with GW that vehicles' weapons are too big to bear for OW fire, but it would be reasonable to imagine a trooper opening an hatch on a turret\hull, grip a mounted bolter or stubber and fire at the incoming enemies. Thank you.

Hmm. Allowing for Overwatch with pintle-mounted weapons, and weapons under S4... that's a difficult proposition.

On the one hand, mostly you're going to be basically saying, "your heavy stubber, storm bolter or shuricat can fire overwatch". On the other, you've got things like Repressors, with a storm bolter and a pintle-mounted heavy flamer, and 6 'basic weapon' fire-points... or Ork Trukks with a half-dozen bolt-on big shootas. Or, heaven forbid, anything with a Havoc Launcher.

While I agree, you have some issues you're creating.

1. You then have to factor in shooting arcs for weapons to be fired, since things like shuriken guns on Falcon's etc. are forward facing only, while side ports on Chimera's are side facing only. From a realism standpoint, I'm not sure that either the guardsmen inside the hull nor the Falcon pilot have the time necessary to fire off even BS1 shots at a charging enemy.

2. Pintle-mounted weapons are essentially SM, IG, CSM only. (Yes, yes, SoB and the SM chapters have them too, w/e) which means you're restricting Necrons, Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar, etc. if you limit this overwatch to pintle weapons.

3. If its strictly <S4, then you're eliminating things like hull-mounted heavy flamers and Tau gun drones. I'd call those defensive as well.

Also, from a rules standpoint, vehicles can't be locked in combat. Overwatch helps because it allows your shooting unit to get a final shot in before it could go for turns without shooting again. Tanks don't have to worry about this. In fact, the very next turn the Tank could simply turn its battle cannon and said "defensive weapons" on the group that charged it and fire; very unlike a squad of Tau Firewarriors or Imperial Guardsmen who count on overwatch to give them a desperate edge over enemy melee units.

Perhaps set a rule where if an enemy unit declares a charge (and has models in the front armor arc of the tank), then the tank may choose one weapon to fire overwatch with.
Then add a footnote saying "that's right xenos, no-one loves you", and a picture of a punisher squadron shredding a mob of Orks

Of course restricting it to weapons with S4 would even it out, a bit. But again, Tau and Orks would be left in the lurch. This is an interesting idea though.

EDIT: In summary, S4 (and allowing for Tau and others), one weapon, only if charged from the front arc of the tank (and LOS to the weapon), and I think this idea has merit.

I could see this with restrictions in place working out and not being game-breaking. However, I honestly don't think there needs to be more things to stop assaults from happening. The game is already significantly in favor of shooting.

Transported units can already overwatch out of fire points.
S4 or less (include heavy, as are heavy stubbers) just being able to fire overwatch would be nice, but not really anything to write home about.

A 'Defensive' special rule would be best, rather than lumping all weapons of a certain strength/type together. Thing like multiple rocket pods and the bane-wolf chem thrower were defensive in 5th. That was weird.

Defensive:
This weapon can choose to fire at a different target than the rest of the model's weapons. I can also preform overwatch (providing it would normally be allowed to. No blasts)

I might actually take stubbers on vehicles if they could plink away at whatever they wanted.

In our club we applied these rules, but only if the vehicle had a gunner model clearly shown out of the hatch! It was fun and creative! So TauGun Drones did counted as they were clearly represented on the vehicle.... for Eldar, Necrons and so on, I don't know...simply I think that they don't need these rules.

I Like the solution of McGibs: creation of a new Special Rule - Defensive

Old thread is old. Please let threads die in peace.