Battlewagon Driver with Charged Engine
Between Alpha and Omega, and a little to the left
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Maybe I should stop doing dry topic names, then my threads might get more interest.
Name aside, the intent of the proposal is to present rules that give large models some of the interactivity they had in previous editions while still working in the system as it currently is. As of currently, vehicles and monstrous creatures have a great deal of abstraction to work, and while this isn't a bad thing it leads to some wonkiness such as a baneblade being able to fire all it's weapons if a tread is sticking out, or how arbitrary the stat degradation table is.
At it's core, each "Segment" of a model that has them works like a units has models, with some exceptions. The rules goes as follows:
*Any rules that effect a Model that is applied to a model that have Segments (with the exception of Attacks) affects all segments unless stated otherwise.
*Ranged Weapons must draw line of sight from the segment. Segments can draw line of sight through other segments of the same model. *Melee attacks made by a segment must be made against enemies within 1" of the segment, or the base of the model.
*Ranged Hits made against a model with segments are allocated as per a model in a unit. If a segment is destroyed, damage does not spill into another segment unless by Mortal Wounds. (more on this later)
*Melee attacks may be allocated to any segment the model is touching, or the closet if the vehicle/MC is on a base. If said segment is destroyed, the model's melee attacks may be allocated to any segment. If a segment is destroyed by an attack, damage does not spill into another segment unless by Mortal Wounds or stated otherwise
*Attacks that apply to "all models" (such as from Explodes!) also applies to all segments on a model.
Each segment has it's own statline and wargear. Special rules would still generally apply to the whole model, unless it's something specific (like Grinding Advance only applying to the turret). Just as an example, a rhino might have have:
Front armor, which is armed with a Storm bolter.
WS 6+, BS 3+, Strength 6, Toughness 7, Save 3+, LD 8. Same as normal but it has 2 attacks, 8 Wounds, and 0 Movement. Why is this important? We'll get to that.
Then we have two Armored Tracks. These have +6" movement, WS 6+, BS 7+, Str 6, Toughness 7, 5 Wounds, 1 attack, LD 7, 3+ Save
Then last we have the Body. WS 7+, BS 7+, S 0, T 6, Wound 6, 0 attacks, LD 7, 4+ save
Special Rules
Smoke Launcher, Explodes!, and Transport would be the same.
Self Repair: On a roll of 6, a segment regains a wound. The model can also instead revive a segment to function, coming back with 1 wound. (this would also be the change for mechanic units. This can only recover segments, a destroyed model is too far gone in this case)
Heart of the Machine: When the Body segment is destroyed, the model and all remaining segments are also destroyed.
Obviously there's some tweaking there to be done, but the general idea is that each part has a decent amount of wounds, so each part can't be taken down too easily but when does causes more notable effect. Specifically, it can result in the lost of weapons and other parts of the vehicle can be weaker, so that while they have more wounds over all they can be opened up to weakness. Movement would work with adding any movement together to get the maximum. I personally like the idea that this can be added to things like a MC's arms, so even after blowing off their legs they can crawl towards someone in a terrifying "It will not die!" moment, but it would probably be better to give any vehicle/MC's "body" a minimum movement so they're never totally immobile.
This has the advantage of allowing for different stats for different reasons, rather than trying to have to find an average. Different Leadership as the crew grow less confident as the armor erodes under dire.
The main problem is that, even though it does work within 8th, it's doesn't work well. Ideally, shooting would also be able to shoot at certain segments, either through positioning (in the same vein as armor facings in previous editions) or some kind of ability. The point of increased wounds in the example is so that each segment doesn't go down to incidental shooting. But since you can allocate wounds freely like normal, having to go through 24 wounds would take forever (even though the rhino would be immobilized and without weapons, in a situation where destruction is necessary it would). Going for "closer" like old armor facing gets some weird results (The tracks are further ahead on a rhino than the front armor, as one example.) The best idea I can come up with is wounds can only allocated to areas that are in the unit's LOS (so if a unit is behind the rhino, the wounds can't be put on the front armor.
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Fixture of Dakka
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I feel like this would be too much bookkeeping on normal monsters/vehicles, and anything requiring you to measure to specific parts of the model is going to get messy fast. However, I think a modified version of this concept could work for superheavies (whose high costs results in a lower unit count meaning you can afford a bit of added complexity.) The goal of doing so would be to break down superheavies into more managable bits, to add the sense that you're making progress as you kill a knight (rather than just costing them 1CP to ignore the damage track), and to add a bit of cinematic "boss fight" flavor to such giant war machines.
Here are a few versions of what that might look like:
Version A:
All sufficiently big models (probably just superheavies) ditch their damage charts. Instead, they have a list of "systems." When you would normally degrade a unit with systems, you select (roll for?) a system. The target suffers the corresponding penalty for the rest of the game. For instance, an imperial knight's systems might look like:
* Legs: Lose the use of Titanic Feet and cut Movement stat in half for the rest of the game. (Makes reaper chainswords more important.)
* Generators: -1 to all invulnerable saves for the rest of the game.
* Pilot Interface: -1 to to-hit rolls for the rest of the game.
Version B:
Superheavies have systems. Each system has a certain number wounds. If you roll a to-hit roll of 6 or use certain strats/abilities, you can target a system's Toughness/Save/Wounds instead of the normal Toughness/Save/Wounds of the unit. If you reduce a system to 0 wounds, suffer the corresponding detriment (per above).
Depending on how difficult it is to take out a system, this might extend so far as to let you destroy specific weapons, although that's hard to balance. A shadowsword loses a lot of value if you can just focus fire its main gun.
Version C:
As Version B, but a superheavy is made up entirely of systems; you can't just target the main "normal" profile. Instead, you'd randomize which system gets targeted by all of a unit's attacks when you declare you're shooting at the super heavy. Strats and other abilities could make it easier to target specific systems or allow your opponent to determine which system gets targeted.
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Storm Trooper with Maglight
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Overall I like it in theory, but for the scale of 40K these days I don't think its necessary for regular vehicles. This kind of detail would only slow a game down, and with lots of vehicles (potentially) to track, it could get messy easily. The current level of abstraction works well enough, for the size of armies that most players tend to use.
Titanic units, could perhaps use a bit more granularity in how damage is applied to them. Which would not be as cumbersome, as any army with 1 or more super heavies, will have significantly fewer other units to worry about, so the book keeping and slowing down issues are significantly less. Though really, there should almost be another game type for super heavies only, with a lot more granular damage - but that's a conversation for another thread I feel.
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