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Ok - We all know it.
A weapon with D6 Shots followed by a roll to hit, roll to wound, and then d6 damage, and only if you hold still, is a really poor weapon design.
I'm brainstorming changes to the Necron Doomsday weapons, which are rapidly losing ground to every other 9th ed codex army's ranged anti-tank weaponry.
I believe small points adjustments (+10/15 points) would be reasonable for these buffs.

First -
For Doomstalkers and Doomsday Arks, they are currently penalized for moving, being forced to use an inferior profile. This caveat should be removed entirely.
Especially in an edition where vehicles move and shoot heavy weapons without penalty by design. Allow the player the choice to use the available profile based on the target at hand.

Second -
Remove the old profiles, replace with:
When a player fires this weapon, select 1 of the following profiles to use:
High Power Shots - Heavy 4, Str 12, AP-5, 3d3 damage Range 72, against targets with the [Vehicle] Keyword, on a roll of a 6+, the target additionally suffers d3 mortal wounds.
Low Power Shots - Heavy 2d6 Blast, Str 6, AP-2, 2 damage Range 36

Idea being
The High Power Shots allow the unit to continue to engage super heavy vehicles reliably, almost all of whom have an invuln, helping to keep balance vs low shot count.
The Low Power Shots is the anti-infantry profile. Removing the d3 damage helps speed up gameplay, and offers a choice when many armies have -1 damage available to them.

Ideas? Tweaks to the above?

That's just too much IMO. I can't think of a flat 6-damage weapon that isn't on a Titanic unit. a 3D6 Blast is something you get on a Baneblade.

 Valkyrie wrote:
That's just too much IMO. I can't think of a flat 6-damage weapon that isn't on a Titanic unit. a 3D6 Blast is something you get on a Baneblade.

I mean Wyvern's have a 4d6 blast weapon. its 4d6 of bolters mind you but things of this nature do occur. I know numerous Forgeworld Marine and Guard tanks with Neutron lasers have a flat damage of 6. The Sicarian Venator and the Valdor tank destroyer.

But in all honesty the Doomsday Ark should be probably the best gun in the codex. I'd say keep the high and low power dichotomy, its a genuine trade off which this game needs more of, not less of.

The Doomsday Cannon could be taken in 2 directions. Instead of giving it a blast profile, make it absolutely Godly at destroying large targets, something along the lines of str 16, AP-5 and damage 12. Something along the lines of that harpoon on the Knight Valiant. A single shot but it will one shot a mid range tank like a Russ, provided it wounds. Perhaps instead of providing it with a low power shot, give it a dispersed profile (which could be made so thats the only mobile profile) and have that be 2d6 blast with Strength 6 AP-2 and 2 damage. If you're looking at gunning down marines and the like you disperse the beam, and if you're looking to LOL one shot a tank you fire the gun at high power into the target. Make this gun terrifying to look down but price it high, and emphasize that it is artillery and thus is not as durable as its tank counterparts in other codexes.

Or you make it more consistent with similar shot output to the current gun.

Well, alright, i get the point for the low power setting. I adjusted the number of shots to 2d6.

The thing i'm trying to do is make it consistent.
Would you say merging the focused and high power profiles would be the better play? At that point, you'd look at heavy 2d3 blast, ap 10, ap-4, and 3+d3 damage. Is that more reasonable?

 iGuy91 wrote:
Well, alright, i get the point for the low power setting. I adjusted the number of shots to 2d6.

The thing i'm trying to do is make it consistent.
Would you say merging the focused and high power profiles would be the better play? At that point, you'd look at heavy 2d3 blast, ap 10, ap-4, and 3+d3 damage. Is that more reasonable?

Much more reasonable. Wasn't the old high-power shot Ap-5? Might as well keep it as that as well.

Yeah it was and still is -5 AP

The Doomsday Cannon should definitely have been tweaked in the codex. Blows my mind that a gun that big (bigger than a Volcano Lance?) is not STR 14 at least.

I'd make it Heavy 4, STR14, -5AP, D3+3 DMG and remove Blast and the movement penalty. Adjust the points accordingly (although it's currently overpriced anyway).

 iGuy91 wrote:
Well, alright, i get the point for the low power setting. I adjusted the number of shots to 2d6.

The thing i'm trying to do is make it consistent.
Would you say merging the focused and high power profiles would be the better play? At that point, you'd look at heavy 2d3 blast, ap 10, ap-4, and 3+d3 damage. Is that more reasonable?

Damage 3+d3 would be inkeeping with the drukhari reaper's recent changes. It is also a d6 shot, high strength, good AP, formerly d6 damage gun, so I feel it's worth keeping in mind for comparison.

I... kind of like having an incentive to hold still. Obviously it's less powerful than being able to toss around max-powered shots while moving at speed, but it gives the doomsday ark and its weapon a little more gravitas. And if I were facing such a weapon, being rewarded for hiding my units out of line of sight of an especially potent weapon is rewarding and creates interesting decisions. Is it worth wandering out into the doomsday ark's line of sight to deliver the death blow to a squad standing on an objective?

I don't really have a suggestion for how to better implement an incentive for holding still, but I do see the appeal of keeping it.

How about a couple mortal wounds on a 4+ to wound roll? 1 or D3 per hit but perhaps lower the base damage down to D3. Something that makes it feel like an unstoppable weapon that wont be deflected by some tosser holding up a shield infront of them.

How about this:

- If this unit remained stationary in the movement phase, then after resolving shots from the Doomsday Cannon, roll a D6 for every unit within 6" of the target unit. On a 4+ they take a Mortal Wound, on a 6 they take D3

 Valkyrie wrote:
How about this:

- If this unit remained stationary in the movement phase, then after resolving shots from the Doomsday Cannon, roll a D6 for every unit within 6" of the target unit. On a 4+ they take a Mortal Wound, on a 6 they take D3

You're only thinking of tanks. Imaging a unit of infantry (say, 30 orks) with a bunch of characters around behind them. that's a lot of chances for mortal wounds on units that shouldn't get them.

I would simply say "If this model does not move, then any roll to wound of 3+ is considered a success, even if it would normally fail". The thing is for tank hunting, and saying "direct all power to the guns" before shooting a titan with T10+ should get you wounds on a 3+. Maybe even go as far as 2+. Or bump the strength up. Or just say "any successful rolls to wound of a 6+ inflicts mortal wounds instead of its regular damage", IE D3+3 mortal wounds instead of wounds, bypassing saves entirely.

 iGuy91 wrote:
Ok - We all know it.
A weapon with D6 Shots followed by a roll to hit, roll to wound, and then d6 damage, and only if you hold still, is a really poor weapon design.

No, randomness is not automatically bad, it's swingy but some things should be.

I'm brainstorming changes to the Necron Doomsday weapons, which are rapidly losing ground to every other 9th ed codex army's ranged anti-tank weaponry.

Just recently a list with multiple Doomsday Arks topped a GT if I recall correctly. How sure are you about them losing ground? Should Necrons not be a durability focussed faction? How killy does the game need to be before enough is enough?

I believe small points adjustments (+10/15 points) would be reasonable for these buffs.

More like 30-60.

First -
For Doomstalkers and Doomsday Arks, they are currently penalized for moving, being forced to use an inferior profile. This caveat should be removed entirely.
Especially in an edition where vehicles move and shoot heavy weapons without penalty by design. Allow the player the choice to use the available profile based on the target at hand.

Necrons are also supposed to be a rather slow army with a few fast elements and some shananigans for speeding themselves up, if you want a fast moving all-purpose unit why not just use Tesseract Arks?

Second -
Remove the old profiles, replace with:
When a player fires this weapon, select 1 of the following profiles to use:
Focused Shot - Heavy 3, Str 12, AP-4, 6 damage, Range 72
High Power Shots - Heavy 2d3, Str 8, AP-3, 3+d3 damage Range 48
Low Power Shots - Heavy 2d6 Blast, Str 6, AP-2, 2 damage Range 36

The two first profiles lacking blast means the DDA would outperform many melee monsters in melee.

Idea being
Focused Shots allow the unit to continue to engage super heavy vehicles, almost all of whom have an invuln, helping to keep balance vs low shot count.

Increased AP does not help vs Knights, it and flat 6 damage make it very reliable against T7-8 3+ Sv 11-12W tanks like Predators, Leman Russes, Gladiators, etc. You're looking at almost a full Leman Russ destroyed every turn with a unit that moves fast and has insane range and the auxiliary gauss weapons that makes it decent against hordes and added versatility with alternate weapon profiles. The DDA is already too much of a glass cannon, it should be reduced to D3 shots.

I would be happy with 2D3 instead of D6. Thats still random, but a minimum of 2, and the average is 4.

 some bloke wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:
How about this:

- If this unit remained stationary in the movement phase, then after resolving shots from the Doomsday Cannon, roll a D6 for every unit within 6" of the target unit. On a 4+ they take a Mortal Wound, on a 6 they take D3

You're only thinking of tanks. Imaging a unit of infantry (say, 30 orks) with a bunch of characters around behind them. that's a lot of chances for mortal wounds on units that shouldn't get them.

I would simply say "If this model does not move, then any roll to wound of 3+ is considered a success, even if it would normally fail". The thing is for tank hunting, and saying "direct all power to the guns" before shooting a titan with T10+ should get you wounds on a 3+. Maybe even go as far as 2+. Or bump the strength up. Or just say "any successful rolls to wound of a 6+ inflicts mortal wounds instead of its regular damage", IE D3+3 mortal wounds instead of wounds, bypassing saves entirely.

You'll be wounding most vehicles on 3+ anyway, Titans are now T9/10 so even that isn't much of a boost. If you do shoot at the 30 Ork Boys, then you've wasted your anti-tank firepower for the chance of a few Mortal Wounds. I was originally thinking of a 3" radius for that effect, perhaps that's a bit more balanced.

I've made some updates based on the changes suggested.
Removed the focused beam entirely, merging it with the High Power profile.
Updated AP-5 to the heavy profile in keeping with current stats.
Added a MW mechanic on 6s to wound only vs vehicles.

In my mind, keeping the caveat that it must use a low power profile is a nonstarter. It makes no sense given the creative direction 9th edition has headed towards with vehicles universally able to move and fire heavy weapons without issue.

I wouldnt mind doomsday weapons getting a negate invuln save rule

 vict0988 wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:
Ok - We all know it.
A weapon with D6 Shots followed by a roll to hit, roll to wound, and then d6 damage, and only if you hold still, is a really poor weapon design.

No, randomness is not automatically bad, it's swingy but some things should be.

I'm brainstorming changes to the Necron Doomsday weapons, which are rapidly losing ground to every other 9th ed codex army's ranged anti-tank weaponry.

Just recently a list with multiple Doomsday Arks topped a GT if I recall correctly. How sure are you about them losing ground? Should Necrons not be a durability focussed faction? How killy does the game need to be before enough is enough?

I believe small points adjustments (+10/15 points) would be reasonable for these buffs.

More like 30-60.

First -
For Doomstalkers and Doomsday Arks, they are currently penalized for moving, being forced to use an inferior profile. This caveat should be removed entirely.
Especially in an edition where vehicles move and shoot heavy weapons without penalty by design. Allow the player the choice to use the available profile based on the target at hand.

Necrons are also supposed to be a rather slow army with a few fast elements and some shananigans for speeding themselves up, if you want a fast moving all-purpose unit why not just use Tesseract Arks?

Second -
Remove the old profiles, replace with:
When a player fires this weapon, select 1 of the following profiles to use:
Focused Shot - Heavy 3, Str 12, AP-4, 6 damage, Range 72
High Power Shots - Heavy 2d3, Str 8, AP-3, 3+d3 damage Range 48
Low Power Shots - Heavy 2d6 Blast, Str 6, AP-2, 2 damage Range 36

The two first profiles lacking blast means the DDA would outperform many melee monsters in melee.

Idea being
Focused Shots allow the unit to continue to engage super heavy vehicles, almost all of whom have an invuln, helping to keep balance vs low shot count.

Increased AP does not help vs Knights, it and flat 6 damage make it very reliable against T7-8 3+ Sv 11-12W tanks like Predators, Leman Russes, Gladiators, etc. You're looking at almost a full Leman Russ destroyed every turn with a unit that moves fast and has insane range and the auxiliary gauss weapons that makes it decent against hordes and added versatility with alternate weapon profiles. The DDA is already too much of a glass cannon, it should be reduced to D3 shots.

This whole "Necrons were a slow moving army" garbage REALLY has to stop. You talk about just a couple of fast elements but even the 3rd Edition codex could be absurdly fast and mobile. The only build that was really slow was 4×20 Warriors.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

This whole "Necrons were a slow moving army" garbage REALLY has to stop. You talk about just a couple of fast elements but even the 3rd Edition codex could be absurdly fast and mobile. The only build that was really slow was 4×20 Warriors.

Warriors were mandatory, a Lord was mandatory. C'tan, Monoliths, Immortals, Flayed Ones, Spyders and Pariahs were slow as well. 4 fast units does not make up for 8 slow ones. The lack of transports prior to late 5th made them relatively slow. If you're not into slow, tough and menacing that's fine but I think it is neat, I like the DDA as a static gun platform. OP's DDA is far less unique. 40k allowing vehicles to fire at full effectiveness while moving near top speed is silly to me and not fitting for the feel I think 40k should have. Some GW things should not be copied.

 vict0988 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

This whole "Necrons were a slow moving army" garbage REALLY has to stop. You talk about just a couple of fast elements but even the 3rd Edition codex could be absurdly fast and mobile. The only build that was really slow was 4×20 Warriors.

Warriors were mandatory, a Lord was mandatory. C'tan, Monoliths, Immortals, Flayed Ones, Spyders and Pariahs were slow as well. 4 fast units does not make up for 8 slow ones. The lack of transports prior to late 5th made them relatively slow. If you're not into slow, tough and menacing that's fine but I think it is neat, I like the DDA as a static gun platform. OP's DDA is far less unique. 40k allowing vehicles to fire at full effectiveness while moving near top speed is silly to me and not fitting for the feel I think 40k should have. Some GW things should not be copied.

Only 2×10 to 3×10 Warriors were mandatory. Regarding everything else:
1. Flayed Ones had Deployment shenanigans
2. Immortals had a 24" Assault 2 gun coupled with:
3. Veil Lord moving around the board. The Lord was also able to be mounted on a Destroyer body
4. The Monolith could Deep Strike and bring said slower units with it.

So in reality it was the Spyder, CTan, and Pariahs that were slow. Most units were able to get around the board fine unless you were insisting on only playing 4×20 Warriors in the middle of the board moving. Then in 5th we got even more fast elements added.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

This whole "Necrons were a slow moving army" garbage REALLY has to stop. You talk about just a couple of fast elements but even the 3rd Edition codex could be absurdly fast and mobile. The only build that was really slow was 4×20 Warriors.

Warriors were mandatory, a Lord was mandatory. C'tan, Monoliths, Immortals, Flayed Ones, Spyders and Pariahs were slow as well. 4 fast units does not make up for 8 slow ones. The lack of transports prior to late 5th made them relatively slow. If you're not into slow, tough and menacing that's fine but I think it is neat, I like the DDA as a static gun platform. OP's DDA is far less unique. 40k allowing vehicles to fire at full effectiveness while moving near top speed is silly to me and not fitting for the feel I think 40k should have. Some GW things should not be copied.

Only 2×10 to 3×10 Warriors were mandatory. Regarding everything else:
1. Flayed Ones had Deployment shenanigans
2. Immortals had a 24" Assault 2 gun coupled with:
3. Veil Lord moving around the board. The Lord was also able to be mounted on a Destroyer body
4. The Monolith could Deep Strike and bring said slower units with it.

So in reality it was the Spyder, CTan, and Pariahs that were slow. Most units were able to get around the board fine unless you were insisting on only playing 4×20 Warriors in the middle of the board moving. Then in 5th we got even more fast elements added.

The DDA is supposed to balance out the 5e speedbost IMO.

 iGuy91 wrote:
Ok - We all know it.
A weapon with D6 Shots followed by a roll to hit, roll to wound, and then d6 damage, and only if you hold still, is a really poor weapon design.
I'm brainstorming changes to the Necron Doomsday weapons, which are rapidly losing ground to every other 9th ed codex army's ranged anti-tank weaponry.
I believe small points adjustments (+10/15 points) would be reasonable for these buffs.

First -
For Doomstalkers and Doomsday Arks, they are currently penalized for moving, being forced to use an inferior profile. This caveat should be removed entirely.
Especially in an edition where vehicles move and shoot heavy weapons without penalty by design. Allow the player the choice to use the available profile based on the target at hand.

Second -
Remove the old profiles, replace with:
When a player fires this weapon, select 1 of the following profiles to use:
High Power Shots - Heavy 4, Str 12, AP-5, 3+d3 damage Range 72, against targets with the [Vehicle] Keyword, on a roll of a 6+, the target additionally suffers d3 mortal wounds.
Low Power Shots - Heavy 2d6 Blast, Str 6, AP-2, 2 damage Range 36

Idea being
The High Power Shots allow the unit to continue to engage super heavy vehicles reliably, almost all of whom have an invuln, helping to keep balance vs low shot count.
The Low Power Shots is the anti-infantry profile. Removing the d3 damage helps speed up gameplay, and offers a choice when many armies have -1 damage available to them.

Ideas? Tweaks to the above?

I respectfully suggest changing the high power damage 3d3, no blast. Low power does d3 damage and has blast.

The high power is clearly reserved for large single targets, the low power is more anti infrantry.