wouldn't a last minute speeding grab be possible still by the vehicle moving 6" the squad disembarking 6" and then run towards the objective d6" (not as effective as before, but still has a roughly 15" last minute grab range)
wouldn't a last minute speeding grab be possible still by the vehicle moving 6" the squad disembarking 6" and then run towards the objective d6" (not as effective as before, but still has a roughly 15" last minute grab range)
Step one is remove the false dichotomy between vehicles and non-vehicles. Getting rid of armor values and giving vehicles the same stats as infantry but with toughness and an armor save on 4 facings.Originally Posted by itcamefromthedeep
Step two is getting rid of armor saves altogether on all models and folding the entire concept of toughness and armor into a general "defense" stat. Since (while not universally true) it is generally the case that weapons that are good at wounding (high strength) are also good at penetrating armor (good AP value) it makes the two stats redundant and slows the game down by forcing an additional step in combat.
That is the progression.
Personally, I would even prefer to see cover saves eliminated in favor of an evasion stat that handles cover, speed of target, size of target, and stealth systems, so that a Leman Russ (or Baneblade) and a Vyper are not equally easy to hit. It would simplify the game quite a bit without loosing detail and would actually allow for new, plausibly ways to differentiate vehicles. But that is a discussion for a different thread.
Once upon a midnight dreary...
some other systems do that, and I recall a thread a while ago where it came up that people from other systems found it so odd and silly to have toughness, as well as a save, instead of a single defensive stat.
I'm just poking a bit of fun at it, because I actually don't want such a simplification. Streamlining is ok to a point, but don't go overboard, because otherwise we might just as well combine the entire stat profile into 2 stats saying how good a model is in shooting and combat.. which is just silly.
well, they are already to a certain extent. Fastmoving bikes and such gain coversaves because they go so fast, while stealth (and apparently the Tau stealthfields now, but I havent checked up on that yet) also grant (improved) coversaves, and go to ground means you're a smaller target to hit, increasing your coversave as well.Personally, I would even prefer to see cover saves eliminated in favor of an evasion stat that handles cover, speed of target, size of target, and stealth systems, so that a Leman Russ (or Baneblade) and a Vyper are not equally easy to hit. It would simplify the game quite a bit without loosing detail and would actually allow for new, plausibly ways to differentiate vehicles. But that is a discussion for a different thread.
Sometimes a post is so rotten I have to respond like dr.Cox-- My Dwarven painting log -- My Lizardmen painting log -- My Scurrying Skaven painting log -- My nurgle beastmen painting log --My Tau cadre painting log -- My knights of the white wolf -- My Ork painting log
---> Newest: 13-5-2013; Lizardmen, tournament pictures, Won best painted army! ---> New: 7-4-2013; The friendly riptide saves a firewarrior
It requires some objective analysis certainly, but when two (or more) stats are more or less directly proportional 9 times out of 10 then I would say one of them really is redundant and should be eliminated.
Yes, and I was very happy to see them make such a move. It gives me hope that maybe (just maybe) they are trying to move the game in a direction I want, but are trying to do it over multiple editions so as to reduce shock and preserve backward compatibility. Both the way more things are tied into cover saves andwell, they are already to a certain extent. Fastmoving bikes and such gain coversaves because they go so fast, while stealth (and apparently the Tau stealthfields now, but I havent checked up on that yet) also grant (improved) coversaves, and go to ground means you're a smaller target to hit, increasing your coversave as well.
Once upon a midnight dreary...
I do belive that tanks now have wounds so whats needed is an armour save.
so i tryed this last night
AV 10-11 5+ save
AV 12-13 4+ save
AV 14 3+ save
worked rather nice and they lasted a little longer than they do now.
Having played a few games now. I really don't see the issue with hull points.
Yes tanks in the open die fast. But surely the solution to that into alter your tactics to make sure your vehicles get cover saves. Putting armour saves on vehicles mean you can yet again just plonk them down in the open. Which is exactly the main issue tanks had in 5th. They were the option for people that did not want to think about tactics. Just stand and shoot.
...didn't move the majority of my models again. Look at my 1337 tactics!
How do you get cover saves you ask?
How about gunning one of your tanks forward and pop smoke. Whilst the others use the smoking vehicle to keep their hulls down. That way you get cover saves on all your tanks.
Or how about using cheap infantry to block Los?
Or here is another crazy idea. Use terrain to your advantage. It's funny how in all those WW2 tank battles it seemed manoeuvring in and around terrain was the key to tanks surviving.
Finally tanks dying in close combat? To easy to hit? Really that's bad rules? In Europe a bunch of kids seem to be able to hit passenger cars with rocks pretty well. Those are small cars going 120kmh. So how hard would it for a bunch of seasoned trained warriors to hit a tank three times the size. Going only 60kmh? I think tanks get away better than they would in real life. I bet a marine trained to plant a bomb on a moving vehicle at combat speed would have a larger chance of hitting than 60% or 2 in 3.
Again this has to do with tactics. If your tanks die in close combat. You are yourself at fault. Unsupported tanks died to close infantry ever since the first soldier figured out it was better running towards a tank instead of away.
Come have a look at the Void if you dare!
Plog Update: FOW and Khorne Fields
From my Eldar point of view anything AV10 was "shot to pieces" in 5th ed already.
I agree that AV14 are still very hard to kill.
But I do also agree that anything AV12 and less has taken a CHANGE in survivability.
The mechanics changed. Formerly they took a hit and were useless but survived, today they die or are useful.
About the saving roll idea.
not really a bad one. however it should be based on the weapon strength. And just be an addition to the current rules.
any Lances - no save for the vehicle allowed
S 8 + = 6+
S 6+7 = 5+
S 4 = 4+
S 1 to 3 = 3+
Last edited by murgel2006; 14-07-2012 at 19:42. Reason: typos
It seems that vehicles and walkers will be destroyed too easily in 6th. I think that most vehicles, like land raiders, should have more hull points (around 6?).
It seems that walkers will be much easier to destroy now. I think that they should be tougher or less costly.
Vehicles were not particuarly overpowered in 5th edition, especially as time passed and more melta weapons became available. Simply giving army lists more tank-killing weapons in new codices would have solved most issues.
I dont think there is anything wrong with using a different system to represent vehicles (who also suffer different effects from being glanced/penetrated than a flesh&blood/wraithbone creature does from being wounded.). In my mind a rhino seems rather different from a T7 or T8 3-wound creature. Vehicles are so distinct (and have such distinctively different rules from regular models) that I think there is little wrong with having a seperate system for them, which incorporates vehicle-quirks such as the difference between glancing and penetrating. Giving them toughness and adding rules like "if you roll the minimum required to wound this tankcreature, it's a glance, if you roll higher, it's a penetrating hit (eg. roll a 4 to wound with str7 against a t7 vehicle = glance)" just sounds so.. clumsy, and forcily bolted into the system.
Plus of course poisoned attacks and fixed 'to wound' rolls will have a fieldday like you wouldn't believe.
Sometimes a post is so rotten I have to respond like dr.Cox-- My Dwarven painting log -- My Lizardmen painting log -- My Scurrying Skaven painting log -- My nurgle beastmen painting log --My Tau cadre painting log -- My knights of the white wolf -- My Ork painting log
---> Newest: 13-5-2013; Lizardmen, tournament pictures, Won best painted army! ---> New: 7-4-2013; The friendly riptide saves a firewarrior
Well that is circular reasoning if ever I saw it. They are distinct BECAUSE they have separate rules. The distinction between glancing and penetrating has been a largely semantic one until this edition and could easily be removed. The only additional rules vehicles need that infantry and (maybe) MCs don't is different toughness values by facing and the ability to accumulate damage with meaningful effects (Immobilized, weapon destroyed, etc...) neither of which would be difficult to incorporate into a toughness based system while simultaneously removing something like 20 pages of other rules.
No doubt, such a radical change would require a complete redesign and rebalancing. Such a move would necessitate an almost total reboot of the system. This is not something that could just be done with an incremental revision like the past 3 editions, and for that reason I don't think GW will ever do it, but it would be beneficial to the long term health of the game.Plus of course poisoned attacks and fixed 'to wound' rolls will have a fieldday like you wouldn't believe.
Once upon a midnight dreary...
40k has two sets of rules: the rules and the rules for vehicles. Virtually every offensive special rule or attack has the section describing how it works, and then how it works on vehicles. The mechanics for roughly 1/3 units in the game is bolted-on in a way you see in no other gaming system out there.
The difference between a vehicle and a normal model isn't all that wide. Wraithlords used to be vehicles, and Dreadknights are the kind of thing you'd expect to be a vehicle at first glance. Why poison works on a Dreadknight is difficult to see.
Only if you write the rules that way. Giving some models a toughness value and others, say, a Structure value that use the same "to wound" mechanic can solve the problem, where Poison affects models with Toughness but not those with Structure and Haywire affects models with Structure but not Toughness. It's not exactly rocket science here.
That would also let you do things like make Necrons and Dreadknights immune to poison by letting them all use the Vehicle defensive stat, for instance. Not that there couldn't be a similar mechanic that works on both (you could call it corrosion, for instance).
Why is that? The addition of Hull Points and Flyers didn't require a reboot.
Also of course the difference being that a vehicle is not a "person", they drive, turbo, tankshock, explode, allow troops to embark/disembark, get stunned shocked, immobilised and deweaponed, act differently in CC, have different line of sight for weaponry (not 360 like non-vehicles), are affected differently by templates, stay on the field when wrecked, go through terrain differently, andsoforth.
A vehicle isn't a dude who happens to be able to hide people in it's belly. Vehicles are not kangaroos.
They are going to need different rules for all the vehicle-stuff anyway, unless we're going to let vehicles 'run' and 'go to ground' and stuff (which we obviously arent), or note the exception for vehicles with every single rule. It seems easier to divide them up from the start. A couple of walkers (wraithlord, dreadknight) are a bit iffy in that they could be either walker or MC, but "actual" vehicles like rhino's, falcons, devilfishes, etc. are hard to miss-classify.
There's a guy hanging off the front? It's 40Ks equivalent of a babyholder
Neither are armourvalues, seeing as they're claimed to be so 'similar' and 'directly proportional' to toughness in the majority of cases anyway, and I don't think people have much trouble with the toughness-system either.It's not exactly rocket science here.
Last edited by The bearded one; 14-07-2012 at 22:34.
Sometimes a post is so rotten I have to respond like dr.Cox-- My Dwarven painting log -- My Lizardmen painting log -- My Scurrying Skaven painting log -- My nurgle beastmen painting log --My Tau cadre painting log -- My knights of the white wolf -- My Ork painting log
---> Newest: 13-5-2013; Lizardmen, tournament pictures, Won best painted army! ---> New: 7-4-2013; The friendly riptide saves a firewarrior
Exactly. You could eliminate a third of the rulebook without loosing any level of detail from vehicles and make the whole function much smoother and more intuitively.
Hull points only go half way (and I heartily approve of them). To go all the way would invalidate units in all the codexes and throw huge swathes of existing rules all out of whack to the extent that the entire system would need to be redesigned. As for flyers, that is just another set of special rules bolted onto an already existing set of special rulesWhy is that? The addition of Hull Points and Flyers didn't require a reboot.
I do like your idea of separating out mechanical and organic units. I would do it with a keyword though, instead of a different stat. Poison effects units with the organic keyword, haywire (and/or gauss and EMP) effects units with the mechanical keyword, and given the setting, I might add daemon as a third type.
@BeardedOne -
All those things you listed can be achieved without the needless complexity of a second way to roll to wound. In fact, you mention vehicles running, 6e basically just implemented that by moving flat out moves to the shooting phase. All those things you mentioned can be handled just as easily with a toughness mechanic without needed a second method of wound resolution and they could be done in 2 pages instead of 20.
Alright, transport might take a little more effort, but it is going to be involved regardless and quite frankly the game needs rules for organic troops transports. Kroot, Orks, tyranids and probably daemons could all benefit from coherent rules for non-vehicle troop transports, and eliminating the arbitrary distinction between vehicles and non vehicles would do that.
The only reason you perceive such a difference between the two categories is because the rules have created this arbitrary distinction over the years. Vypers are vehicles but bikes and jetbikes aren't, the dreadknight is a MC because there is a guy hanging off the front (which is what open topped is for) but warwalkers are vehicles. The entire category of "Walkers" was invented because the rules designers recognized that the line between the two was blurry and ill-defined, so why not get rid of it altogether and make a system that will work smoother and not loose any detail.
Once upon a midnight dreary...
You realize that it's casually easy to give a Monstrous Creature a transport capacity and use the same rules, right? Something like a Tyranid Cerebore or one of the Assault Spawn, a Great Unclean One that carries Nurgling swarms in it or even a model that carries a portal like the one on a Night Scythe (Dark Eldar Webway portals could work like this as well).
If they put an orangutan in the game, they might just decide to add a kangaroo after all.
EDIT: There are of course walkers which use the same rules for running, act "normally" in close combat for a fearless model and go through terrain normally, among other similarities.
They let at least some vehicles do both. When a vehicle "runs" it's called Moving Flat OutThey are going to need different rules for all the vehicle-stuff anyway, unless we're going to let vehicles 'run' and 'go to ground' and stuff (which we obviously arent
and flyers can now get a cover save in the open in exchange for only firing snap shots next turn (much like Going to Ground).
Now, they could have just used the same "run" and "go to ground" rules for all the models in the game, but instead they insist that vehicles are precious snowflakes that need to be treated at least a little bit differently in every respect.
The all-but invulnerable force field is supposed to be making the baby-holder part as tough as the rest, last I checked.There's a guy hanging off the front? It's 40Ks equivalent of a babyholder
A rule to avoid making poison too powerful isn't rocket science. You can tell that's what I meant because of the rest of the paragraph, in response to how you were worried about how good poison would be.
Last edited by itcamefromthedeep; 14-07-2012 at 23:53.
Only because you're used to the system.
Really, what's the difference between a carnefex and a dreadnought? Both are heavily armoured with squishy organic parts inside. Why do we need a Toughness value for one, and an Armour Value for the other? If Dreadnoughts were T8, would things be so very different? If Carnefexes had "damage tables" representing loss of limbs, stunning or crippled legs would it be so outlandish?
It doesn't make a lot of sense to have two systems that do functionally identical things. It causes all sorts of oddities as they don't gel well. Plasma guns cut through the toughest armour on organic troops, but aren't very good at damaging vehicles. Conversely multilasers can blow through a rhino but apparently doesn't have enough AP to cut through flak armour?
Sure, vehicles are different. They don't take difficult terrain, they can turboboost, etc. But that doesn't mean you couldn't apply a toughness to them. After all bikes do all these things and they don't need an AV!
There's no actual reason vehicles couldn't have a toughness value and an armour save. Many things have switched from AV to T, just now support weapons have switched to T values rather than AV. Plenty of "inorganic" things in the game already have toughness values from wraithlords and wraithguard, Necrons, etc and some things more organic than machine have armour values like soulgrinders.
This doesn't mean that a "unit type: Vehicle" wouldn't exist, or have unique rules. Just that there wouldn't need to be a whole separate system for damaging them when one exists already! Damage tables could still exist and easily be incorporated into the game rules. Indeed, they could be folded in as a general mechanic for large multi-wound models and therefore affect Monstrous Creatures too...
It's hard to imagine since we've been playing 40K with armour values in one form or another for twenty years but really there's no real reason they need exist.
... and then I won.
@ Forgottenlore: I see more what you mean now, and can agree on certain counts, though folding all vehicle rules into rules for 'regular' rules will not necessarily be fully logical or intuitive, as numerous distinctions will still be required to be made in regards to rules interacting with vehicles.
@ Lord Inquisitor: As noted, walkers are generally the more iffy ones as they are often interchangable with MCs. A box on wheels/gravjets less so.
Also note that sometimes you can just stick with a system you have, precisely because we're "used to it" over the many editions. Alternatively of course you could also throw everything out the window every time a new edition rolls in and redesign a system from the ground up each time. I'm sure there are dozens of ways to do things and better alternatives for even the portions of the system that work best. We like to demand sweeping changes and edgey thought-out redesigns, but sometimes its also possible to simply be content with what you have, even if you could attempt to make it better, because it works okay enough to go with making the general distinction of regular models and vehicles, as one is a guy/creature with various models of transport (feet, jumppacks, bikes, mounts, jetbikes, babyholders), and the other is a structure.
Hence the T6, 2+ armoursave and 5+ invulnerable, no?
Last edited by The bearded one; 14-07-2012 at 23:27.
Sometimes a post is so rotten I have to respond like dr.Cox-- My Dwarven painting log -- My Lizardmen painting log -- My Scurrying Skaven painting log -- My nurgle beastmen painting log --My Tau cadre painting log -- My knights of the white wolf -- My Ork painting log
---> Newest: 13-5-2013; Lizardmen, tournament pictures, Won best painted army! ---> New: 7-4-2013; The friendly riptide saves a firewarrior
Simply because they are the easiest to compare. That's all. Really, there's no reason a Dreadnought needs an Armour Value if a Dreadknight doesn't. A Dreadnought could be T8, 3W and be pretty much identical to the incarnation as it is now.
But just because walkers are the easiest to compare doesn't make it the only vehicles this should apply to. A rhino could be T7, T6 for the rear armour, 3W and it'd be pretty similar to now. Many entries could be simplified. Rending, for example, you could remove all the text regarding vehicles. That's just one example, much of the rest of the book could be simplified with no loss of detail or flavour that exists now. Mechanically virtually identical, just simpler wording. Plus this would allow for vehicles having armour and invul saves, actually increasing the amount of variation you could apply to vehicles.
... and then I won.
aside from the minor snag of course where 2 strengthvalues need the same score to inflict damage whereas that's not possible with armourvalues (str 4-5 vs T7, str 5-6 vs T8 etc.)
As a curiosity to the older players, isn't the current state where armourvalues are nearly the same as toughness the result of simplification over the editions? IIRC in 1st/2nd edition the system was absurdly complex.
Last edited by The bearded one; 14-07-2012 at 23:40.
Sometimes a post is so rotten I have to respond like dr.Cox-- My Dwarven painting log -- My Lizardmen painting log -- My Scurrying Skaven painting log -- My nurgle beastmen painting log --My Tau cadre painting log -- My knights of the white wolf -- My Ork painting log
---> Newest: 13-5-2013; Lizardmen, tournament pictures, Won best painted army! ---> New: 7-4-2013; The friendly riptide saves a firewarrior
At this point, backwards-compatibility seems to be the main one - you give vehicles toughness instead of AV, and you have to provide new values for everything as well as start rewriting things that let you wound on a fixed value so that you don't get people poisoning Land Raiders. The other prominent one seems to be perception - even if the rules are similar, calling it something different allows a different feel to be conveyed.
Yeah that's one of the two minor differences (the other is that you can never wound on a 1+ but you can glance/penetrate). Although I was most surprised 40K didn't go the way of WFB and allowing 6's to wound anything.
Yeah, the vehicle pen system in 2nd was a bit more complicated but it was mostly just more things could be added (if you did multiple wounds you added that to pen rolls) and the values were higher but there were a bunch more locations than just front/rear/side. But the basic principle of D6+strength was in there as I recall.
Well, they just did go through and errata every single vehicle for 8th to add Hull Points. Not much more effort. But a basic principle of AV-4 works too.
Yes, perception seems to be the main reason for keeping armour values (and 40K isn't the only system to do this) but I'm always in favour of a more streamlined system when the mechanics are near identical.
Last edited by Lord Inquisitor; 14-07-2012 at 23:54.
... and then I won.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote