Vibrocannons

[Bergen Beerbelly]

I find it interesting that the description for the Vibro Cannon does say "A target with an Armour Value that is hit by a Vibro Cannon always suffers a single glancing hit; do not roll for armour penetration" instead of "A target with an Armour Value that is hit by a Vibro Cannon Battery always suffers a single glancing hit; do not roll for armour penetration."

While reading other parts of the Vibro Cannon descrpition it does tend to separate between singular and plural. For a long time now I have believed the way Cabalistic does about it. Mainly due to the way the English Language works, with singular and plural being literal.

If it says "A" Vibro Cannon, it doesn't need to say "Every" vibro cannon. "A" works just as well.

Another thing to note is that GW has not FAQ'ed what it says, even though they have answered other questions about the Vibro Cannon. Yet, this question comes up often.

[BramGaunt]

True, "a" vibrocannon is any vibro cannon. But the function of the weapon itself is somewhat complicated. A model hit by "a" boltgun suffers a S4 hit, but we know exactly which models are hit - those you passed a hit-roll for. Those who missed are unaffected With the VibCan it's different. You roll to hit to determine if the unit alltogether hits. One and you pass, none and you fail. If you score a hit, you use a template (in this case a line) to determine what is hit. One single cannon fires the shot, the other two just add their strength to the hit if infantry is affected. Also, the rules state precisely that you draw a single line from any one of the cannons, not one per cannon fired. The diceroll aside there is no indication that the other cannons do fire at all. The three cannons fire as one, and therefor only produce 1 (or 1D6) hits. Again, if cabalistic was right about the "each succesfull to hit roll means that one cannon has hit" or one succesfull hit means they all have hit, shouldn't it be D6 per cannon fired? The whole battery works more like several Fire Prisms working together to focus the strength of their weapon. While the shot of the one of them that actually fires is more potent, it still is only one shot.

[Bergen Beerbelly]

Actually there is very much indication that the other cannons have fired. Because for each cannon in the Battery the Strength of the weapon goes up by one point. That's where it is showing that it is more than just one Vibro Cannon. But amazingly, with the way your saying it works, all of a sudden, it just gets one single glancing hit vs a vehicle? I don't buy it. Especially since the description through out the entire text does make mention of singular Vibro Cannons and plural Vibro Cannons.

And it does in plain english say that a target with an Armour Value that is hit by a Vibro Cannon always suffers a single glancing hit.

Not plural.

[BramGaunt]

True, but more cannons don't create more hits - they only boost the strength of the one (one D6) hits. And again, I think if it was intended to be one hit per cannon fired, it would clearly say so, not leave room for speculation. What if you draw the line from the nearest cannon towards the vehicle, and the other two are out of range? Is the vehicle still hit? How would you explain that?

And yes, it states that a model hit by a vibro cannon suffers a single hit. Not 3, not two, a single hit. Since the line/template is only drawn from one cannon, that is the cannon that has hit the vehicle, and that's the one glancing hit you get. One line, one shot, one hit.

On a funny sidenote, GW really needs to sort out their homepage. While browsing the errata/faq part I stumbled upon this.

[Bergen Beerbelly]

I would personally sort it like this. Yes, the vehicle was still hit. But only by one of the cannon as the other two were out of range and could not contribute to the shot. Therefore, they would only get one glancing hit vs the vehicle. But if it works the way I think it does, then if two cannons were in range then the vehicle would take two glancing hits.

Another wierd interaction is what happens when the Vibro Cannon Battery shoots into a Vehicle Squadron?

[BramGaunt]

Haven't thought of that. If you use logic it supports the one glance for the whole battery thing, as otherwise you'd hit one vehicle and damage three. I know that tabletop uses abstract rules, but that's ridicculous. The same way that you had to sort that "out of range cannot distribute to hits" you'd have to overwrite the rulebook and say only the vehicle actually hit is affected.

the more I think of it, the more need of a FAQ I see. But I assume that Vibrocannons may be faq'ed to beam weapons anyway, and that could topple the whole mechanic, the same way the dwarven Flame Cannon changed with the new Warhammer rulebook two years ago, therefor I'm not going to put any more enegry into this.

[TheGreatDalmuti]

This is nice.
The rule mentions a vehicle hit by a vibrocannon.
So in case of a battery of cannons what does it mean? How many of the cannons rolled succesfully to hit? Or if the line passed over the vehicle so it is hit?
Well since you wouldn't know if a vehicle is hit until you draw the line I guess it is the seecond way.
Moreover, range has nothing to do with vibrocannons. You do not select a target for him to be out of range. So you never check range. You draw one line.
Now the whole thing got wrong because of the mid rule example. Replace the "is hit by a vibro cannon" with "the line passes through" and you are good to go.
The arguement that the above is for infantry only will only lead to vibrocannons adding strength against infantry only, since that is in the "infantry" part of the rule.

[fidesratioque]

This is why we can't have nice things (as Eldar).

As soon as anyone argues that Eldar weapon x does something cool, it's a giant dogpile.

[eldargal]

This may help (or make it much worse), the plural of cannon is cannon in English, it is only cannons in American English and even then cannon is sometimes used and still remains appropriate. Likewise cannons can be used in English quite fine, it just isn't technically appropriate.

[fidesratioque]

I remember debates like this about tank shocking with star engines in the shooting phase until GW finally FAQed it in January of this year. My opponents would get so worked up about it that I didn't do it, even though it was a legitimately open question up until recently.

Likewise, even if good arguments can be made for 3x glances from 3x vibrocannons, I'll probably play them the nerfed way just to avoid annoying rules arguments.

[Solonor]

I really think that delving to much on a subject of rules that are unique and made for an older edition (4th) really just complicates things. For me it is pretty clear that the battery of vibro "cannon(s)" is supposed to work like a single gun regardless of the actuall number of cannons in the battery, you draw a 36" line from one of the cannons and any unit or vehicle under it suffers d6 S4-6 or an automatic glancing hit respectively.

[Avatar111x]

Would vibro cannon hitting a vehicle squadron do d6 hits and then each of those would be glancing? If so devestating against light vehicle squadrons ...

It's not mentioned in any of the FAQS or anywhere else.

[Hendarion]

Squadrons are not units and therefore: no. However it works, a squadron won't get D6 hits. I wish it would, but it probably not only sounds like cheating, but also is.

[ToXikyogHurt]

Squadrons are not units

Page 77 disagrees.

There's a caveat even if a squadron does suffer d6 hits: While the final paragraph of the V-cannon rules doesn't specify 'target unit' or 'target model' (just 'target'), it does then say that each 'target' takes just a single glancing hit, not one glance per hit. Even if you hit multiple times, all the hits are assigned to the closest model, and adding more hits doesn't add more glances.

Roll d6 if you want, it doesn't matter, you inflict one glance - my reading anyway.

[Hendarion]

You're right, ToXikyogHurt, my bad. The final result is the same though.