>hull points-epic fail GW!

[Vaktathi]

It's what I call the 40k vehicle cycle. I've been playing since the start of 3rd and it's been a pretty predictable pattern.

3rd: Rhino Rush is king, armies load up on transports and other vehicles.
4th: GW nerfs vehicles to encourage more boots on the ground. Transports are death traps. Glances can kill with a lucky 6.
5th: GW needs to sell more vehicles. Transports become a no brainer choice for nearly all units that can take them and the vehicle damage table is changed to increase the survivability of all vehicles.
6th: Vehicles are too abundant. Hull Points are introduced.

It's really more that GW can't decide what they want vehicles to be or do, glances also killed on 6's in 3rd. It's not just transport rules that change every edition radically, it's been vehicle shooting rules and cover as well, not to mention Skimmer capabilities.

Personally I think Hull Points balance out vehicles pretty well. Heavier vehicles like Leman Russ's, Land Raiders etc. now feel more beastly as you can no longer stun lock them. Unless you destroy them they will be doing bad things to you next turn rather than idling in one spot while the crew drools on themselves.. Lighter transports feel like actual transports.

Here's the issue, people are treating everything that's not an AV13/14 battle tank as a cheap transport, and that seems to be how GW looked at it.

The problem is that dirt-cheap transports are are a minority of vehicles, even light ones, there are lots of gun tanks and artillery units, as well as pricier transports, and not all transports were meant to be cheap battle taxi's, many were meant to be support tanks as well.

Heavy tanks were were disabled far more often by penetrating hits than glancing hits typically, most stuff that coule hurt them penetrated them more often than they pen'd them (e.g. meltaguns, railguns, lances, etc).

Everything, including heavy tanks, are easier to kill than they ever have been, by a significant margin, and the very existence of a damage table has been made largely superfluous in terms of vehicle destruction.

Something you use to get you where you need to go quickly, and then you get the hell out of it. Crazy I know. In 5th, Transports weren't transports. They were mobile homes that units would sit in all game until forced to disembark.

It's the first edition where transports weren't deathtraps or assault skateboards. GW never bothered with adding in reasons for infantry to disembark like every other game system has (e.g. spotting, taking defensive positions, clearing/creating obstacles, etc).

Are vehicles more fragile? In terms of being easier to destroy, yes. In terms of sitting impotent all game doing nothing, hell no. I'd much rather have a tank that I can actually use while it's "alive" then one sitting in the back all game, doing nothing after being stunned 5 times. Actually moving and shooting my models is a lot more fun to me. Guess I'm odd that way.

A pen will stun a tank, people seem to think the only time vehicles got stunned was on a glancing hit, and that somehow with no damage table for glances suddenly tanks never get stunned anymore. Tanks still get stuned on pen's, which against big guns are more prevalent than glances, and against large numbers of glancing hits from weeny weapons your tank is dead instead.

Unless you're just taking glances one at a time and your opponent just quits shooting at it after 1 HP ding, your tanks aren't doing anymore than they were previously, likely less.

[Omniassiah]

Or you could see it another way; GW is throwing down a gauntlet, how you respond will mark your passage and qualities as a gamer.

Been there done that for 4 editions now. It went from being "Cool lets see how I have to change up my game" to "Crap, what new stuff do I need to buy, that is almost blatantly obvious." Kind of like an amateur featherweight boxer going up against the pro heavyweight, sure it may be interesting the first time but its really boring to watch now. It could be the fact that I have gathered enough experience over the years, but anymore I can pick out the stupid broken rules/combinations without thinking much in GW rules.

[The bearded one]

Been there done that for 4 editions now. It went from being "Cool lets see how I have to change up my game" to "Crap, what new stuff do I need to buy, that is almost blatantly obvious." Kind of like an amateur featherweight boxer going up against the pro heavyweight, sure it may be interesting the first time but its really boring to watch now. It could be the fact that I have gathered enough experience over the years, but anymore I can pick out the stupid broken rules/combinations without thinking much in GW rules.

It seems to bounce back and forth, vehicles>infantry>vehicles>infantry, so after 1 switch, you ought to have the mini's and vehicles for both

Thus far I have only changed 1 thing in my Tau list, and that is adding an aegis defence line with quad gun, which incidentally suddenly makes the firewarrior unit controlling it a worthwhile investment

[Cheeslord]

It seems to bounce back and forth, vehicles>infantry>vehicles>infantry, so after 1 switch, you ought to have the mini's and vehicles for both

Indeed - as long as they don't come up with some new classes of things you must buy for this edition ...

...oh...


Mark.

[yabbadabba]

Been there done that for 4 editions now. It went from being "Cool lets see how I have to change up my game" to "Crap, what new stuff do I need to buy, that is almost blatantly obvious." Kind of like an amateur featherweight boxer going up against the pro heavyweight, sure it may be interesting the first time but its really boring to watch now. It could be the fact that I have gathered enough experience over the years, but anymore I can pick out the stupid broken rules/combinations without thinking much in GW rules.

Over 4 editions and you are still having to buy stuff .
People often confuse their hobby with GWs sales needs. This is why I advocate being in a group that can house rule it means the impact of rules changes can be lessened for friendly games. Of course for tournaments, like any competition, you need to adapt to the new rules when they come out - thats the price for being competitive I suppose.

[yabbadabba]

Indeed - as long as they don't come up with some new classes of things you must buy for this edition ...
...oh...
Mark.

And I bet after the first year the need for those flyers will be lessened, or people will play games with them. Of course there always those who have to have the new shiny and simply just have to win - GW really likes those people

[Omniassiah]

Over 4 editions and you are still having to buy stuff .
People often confuse their hobby with GWs sales needs. This is why I advocate being in a group that can house rule it means the impact of rules changes can be lessened for friendly games. Of course for tournaments, like any competition, you need to adapt to the new rules when they come out - thats the price for being competitive I suppose.

It seems to bounce back and forth, vehicles>infantry>vehicles>infantry, so after 1 switch, you ought to have the mini's and vehicles for both

Sadly in between editions you also have codexes which usually change which particular infantry/vehicle type is important and while now I do have enough, it becomes the issue of looking at my wall and going "Why would I waste my time on those?" To some extent you also get shifts in the local Meta as other players codexes come out. Overall 40k has such shallow gameplay that there is really no other way to deal with a unit reliably even temporarily besides killing it, a.k.a. Smoking a unit in FoW. So while house ruling isn't a problem in my group rewriting the game for more interesting game play is.

[yabbadabba]

Sadly in between editions you also have codexes which usually change which particular infantry/vehicle type is important and while now I do have enough, it becomes the issue of looking at my wall and going "Why would I waste my time on those?"

Depends on how you approach the game I suppose

To some extent you also get shifts in the local Meta as other players codexes come out.

I think that is possibly the biggest impact on how the rules are perceived, as often evidenced on Warseer.

Overall 40k has such shallow gameplay that there is really no other way to deal with a unit reliably even temporarily besides killing it, a.k.a. Smoking a unit in FoW. So while house ruling isn't a problem in my group rewriting the game for more interesting game play is.

I always think that house ruling is fine and as such, as using smoke in 40K has existed before, adding some dimensions is easy enough. However if you are thinking you need to rewrite the game then what has happened is your and GWs needs have split and it is probably best to move on.

[mughi3]

Are vehicles more fragile? In terms of being easier to destroy, yes. In terms of sitting impotent all game doing nothing, hell no. I'd much rather have a tank that I can actually use while it's "alive" then one sitting in the back all game, doing nothing after being stunned 5 times. Actually moving and shooting my models is a lot more fun to me. Guess I'm odd that way.

This argument again? sorry it doesnt hold any water. so my vehicle gets stunned on turn 2 and cannot shoot(unless i use a raider that still shoots something or a dread that just asssaults you instead), however it is still alive on turn 6 or 7 and saves my hind end possibly winning me the game. in your ideal world it is still shooting most efficiently on turn 2 but is most likely completely dead on turn 3 or 4 and when you really need it on turn 6 it isn't there.

[yabbadabba]

This argument again? sorry it doesnt hold any water. so my vehicle gets stunned on turn 2 and cannot shoot(unless i use a raider that still shoots something or a dread that just asssaults you instead), however it is still alive on turn 6 or 7 and saves my hind end possibly winning me the game. in your ideal world it is still shooting most efficiently on turn 2 but is most likely completely dead on turn 3 or 4 and when you really need it on turn 6 it isn't there.

That's not an argument.

You have no idea when you need the vehicle, when it will do damage, how that damage will affect the game and how that affect impacts on your winning until after you have rolled the dice. Saying beforehand that you will need anything in your army, outside of scoring units, at any point in the game is claiming to have clairvoyance.

[williamsond]

I like the new hull points stuff, my vehicles seem in real terms to do more rather than sit stunned/shaken for 5-6 turns. however I haven't played agains the necron scourge yet and been insta-glanced to death.
At the end of the day could the vehicles have used a extra hull point? maybe, is it the epic fail every one is crying about not really.

So your tank line isn't a good as it was well them's the breaks, but to be honest if your only having fun when your winning then you need to start playing against some new people.
Some of my best most memorable games have been the ones where I ended up with 5 marines fighting back to back against a horde of enemy toops before getting tabled once again.

[Megad00mer]

I think something else that's making vehicles seem even more fragile right now is the current meta. People are still largely building armies with a 5th edition mindset, i.e: load up on as much anti tank as you can.

As new Codexes come out and people start learning the ins and outs of 6th, I think we'll start seeing more infantry and less vehicles and people will start building army lists accordingly, taking more anti infantry options with less anti tank. This should help vehicles feel a bit more balanced and probably where GW intends them to be power-wise. Right now, with all the melta people are sporting plus the addition of Hull Points, I can understand how one can feel that vehicles are kinda crap.

It'll be interesting to see how people view vehicles in 6 months to a year from now.

[Fear Ghoul]

Right, and that's the problem, they've made tank assaults simply far too easy between Hull Points, hits on Rear Armor, no fighting back, and the to-hit nerf.

But how do you define too easy? I would argue that normal Tanks should die easily to assault. Even now they don't exactly die that easily. A basic Tactical Squad (180 pts) inflicts just over 2 hull points on AV10 per turn. That squad has to cross the whole board, whether firepower from that tank before they assault, and then the same again after the first assault. Why is this a bad thing? A similar points cost of Genestealers inflicts just over 3 hull points on AV10. Again, why is this a bad thing? After they're busy killing that Tank they will surely die to retaliatory fire.

Power weapons are not, and for those that it is, they're loudly and vociferously complained about and shot straight to being the most popular tournament army for the last year of 5th

Grey Knights don't receive complaints because they have power weapons. They receive complaints for just about everything else.

27 BS4 bolter shots on average to inflict 1 wound on a T6 3+sv model. That's annoyance factor at best, you're talking two and a half tac squads worth of optimal range fire there for a single wound. Yeah, it happens, no it's not a huge issue when it takes fire from over 400pts of marines on average to inflict one wound.

Agreed. However, that Tactical Squad can continue to rain that firepower turn after turn from an effective range of 30" (move plus fire), and when the Monstrous Creature gets closer, that's when a krak grenade can be thrown or a meltagun fired. Then the assault begins where more krak grenades can be thrown and a power fist smashed into the big guys face. If we're going to talk about the reality of assaults involving Monstrous Creatures and Vehicles, these have to be considered as well.

I don't disagree necessarily, but MC's also operate to full effectiveness until dead, tanks can be insta-killed, crippled, etc and have very little mitigation.

I agree, and this is one aspect of the rules I dislike. However, there has always been this distinction. I was complaining about it in 5th and I'll keep on complaining about it until it's fixed. That doesn't change the merits of hull points however.

With TLoS, the size of vehicles, and standard 25% terrain? That's very difficult to achieve, especially with more than 1 or 2 vehicles, in fact on most tables I'd say impossible with TLoS (not a complaint against TLoS, just a reality). Even getting everything cover with more than just a couple of vehicles may be doubtful on many tables, though easier than previously (along with attendant reduction on usefulness of cover however).

Well if your terrain is modelled correctly then things like trees should completely obscure vehicles thus rendering them safe against most shooting. You should have 2 such pieces of terrain in your deployment zone, especially now that you choose sides before placing terrain. If you've got lots of tanks then they can hide each other. I'm not seeing the problem here. I'm several games into 6th and I've never thus far failed to hide tanks when I wanted. Stories of tank dying in the first turn always suggest to me that they're leaving them in the open and/or not using the terrain correctly. You get this problem in fantasy as well, where people just leave their monsters in the open and then complain about cannons being overpowered. It's the same principle.

That's only slightly more than a 15pt Space Marine or a 12pt Sister of Battle however at 7.2 BS3 shots on average. Before it was closer to the average a Terminator would require, which also happens to be closer in points value.

A Space Marine with an autocannon costs a lot more than 15 pts.

The problem is that GW takes forever to do this. we still have armies that are two editions old and just within the last 9 months or so dropped the last of the 3rd edition books, and in each of these editions vehicles have gone through wild jumps in usefulness, 5th being the only one where vehicles of all types were consistently useful, and in 6th took the biggest hits to survivability and mission completion utility they've ever taken in the history of the game.

This is a problem with their business model not with their rules.

You mean, like clockwork? Because nothing else in the game is or needs to be like that as a unit type, and it just makes the game auto-pilot easymode in 6E's case. Tanks died in CC in 5th all the time, in many cases it was one of the easiest ways to engage them, especially parking lots. Now in 6th, for many basic units, tank destruction through assault is probably the easiest, most consistent and reliable method of unit destruction that has ever existed (mathematically) in the history of the game.

Considering that the two armies which most often would use assault to try and destroy vehicles were Tyranids and Daemons I'd like to see you say that vehicles were easy to destroy in 5th to their face.

In all seriousness no vehicles weren't easy to destroy in assault in 5th edition. I regularly had Rhinos survive assault with squads of Genestealers by keeping them moving 12". Even if they only moved 6" it would take a disproportionate amount of Genestealers to inflict enough damage to kill a Rhino, and those Genestealers would then die to bolter fire in the next round. As a result my regular opponent pretty much gave up trying to use Genestealers for a role they were originally good at, and instead opted for Hive Guard, Zoanthropes, and Trygons.

Also, I would like to point out that if Hull Points are wounds then everything in the game has a theoretical damage limit (well, except Necrons). By adding Hull Points GW arguably brought them onto the same damage mechanic as everyone else.

If you go by background yes vehicles in the 40K universe do survive insane amounts of damage and survive. At the battle of thranx 5 land raiders were sent against a fortified rebel position at heat sink 871. of the 5 land raiders that made the assault 2 made it to the top. metallus gravis was tracked and then destroyed by a rebel earthshaker cannon, quoth krassis died instantly to a defense laser hit etc... however the cestus which survived the assault loosing a las sponson took 132 shots from the enemy anti-tank weapons and survived.

Yes, but those weren't necessarily lascannon shots were they? What if they were autocannon shots, or multi-lasers, or heavy bolters, or missile launchers? To put into context, one land raider was hit by artillery and was destroyed, so there's no way the surviving land raider survived constant artillery hits now is there?

You must be playing a different game of 40K than i am because everything is mobile now not counting outflanking, deepstriking etc.. heck in 6th most infantry can outrun tanks that want to shoot.

A false analogy. Most infantry that chose to move faster than vehicles can't shoot anyway, while those same vehicles can.
i love dreadnoughts and build a very themed dread based army(and DIY chapter) in 4th-5th edition. i am paying nearly 200 points per dread (and sometimes more) and it is by far nowhere near tournament competiton level. i still love the list, i love the theme, i love all the work i put into it, however i will no longer play it in 6th ed, i tried to play test it and every game was the same. my army evaportated in short order with the new system. it is no longer fun to play via 6th ed (we used to have some epic slogs in 5th ed with much hilarity when the ancient dreads took to the field) when i have such a poor chance at surviving to do anything.

Your dreadnoughts were probably overpriced in 5th edition anyway but kept competitive by the vehicle damage mechanics. Also, if I was playing you and I knew that you fielded an all dreadnought army, there's no way I would ever take anything but anti-tank firepower. Is the problem then not that your army is a one trick pony? Wouldn't everyone tailor their list to combat yours if they knew what they faced? When infantry becomes more prominent and anti-tank weapons lose their appeal, then your list may improve competitively.

The problem is that dirt-cheap transports are are a minority of vehicles, even light ones, there are lots of gun tanks and artillery units, as well as pricier transports, and not all transports were meant to be cheap battle taxi's, many were meant to be support tanks as well.

That's debatable. I'd argue that Rhinos and Chimeras (and their variants) are usually pretty cheap (35 - 130 pts) and sport anything from AV11-13 as well as a wide variety of weapons options and transport capabilities. The only transports or light vehicles I know of that would be considered expensive for what they do belong to the Eldar and Tau. As has been mentioned these are 4th edition codexes living in a 6th edition world. It would have been nice to have an errata to make them cheaper but that's not the way GW does things. Since most of the armies in the game are Imperial I'd say that if the new vehicles rules are favoured towards cheaper light vehicles then they are actually balanced for most armies, as unfortunate for the rest as that is.

Unless you're just taking glances one at a time and your opponent just quits shooting at it after 1 HP ding, your tanks aren't doing anymore than they were previously, likely less.

Most of my opponents can only fire approx. two anti-tank weapons at a tank each turn at best, so inflicting only one or two Hull Points per turn wouldn't be that unusual for them.

This argument again? sorry it doesnt hold any water. so my vehicle gets stunned on turn 2 and cannot shoot(unless i use a raider that still shoots something or a dread that just asssaults you instead), however it is still alive on turn 6 or 7 and saves my hind end possibly winning me the game. in your ideal world it is still shooting most efficiently on turn 2 but is most likely completely dead on turn 3 or 4 and when you really need it on turn 6 it isn't there.

Except that if your vehicle is stunned on turn 2 then that vehicle can't try and destroy what is firing at it, and so the during the next turn your opponent can simply rinse and repeat, stunning your tank for the whole game until he either destroys it or gets unlucky. A tank stunned or shaken for most of the game is still mostly a useless tank, and of course we're not even getting into weapon destroyed/immobilized situations.

Also, I'm fairly certain that stunned dreadnoughts couldn't assault. I may remember incorrectly however.

[tibbyvc]

I've played since the very beginning of 4th edition and for years i've wondered... Where the hell are the airplanes?? has humanity devolved so far that swords are more common than guns, and we have star travelling space ships but no sub-orbit fighter craft?

Well 6th edition finally made the game play like a somewhat real war and people have freaked out. I like that we have to deal with flyers now, and i haven't bought one yet, but it's fun as hell to shoot them down

[Lord Inquisitor]

I don't think anyone's arguing that it isn't realisitic to have aircraft. But it isn't realisitic that everyone doesn't have fair access to AA units or aircraft of their own.

Epic works fine with aircraft but every army has a good selection of either fighter craft or AA units or both.

[Vaktathi]

But how do you define too easy? I would argue that normal Tanks should die easily to assault. Even now they don't exactly die that easily. A basic Tactical Squad (180 pts) inflicts just over 2 hull points on AV10 per turn.

With Bolters? sure. With Krak Grenades? Against a stationary tank with rear AV10 (90% of vehicles in the game), it'll inflict 5 HP's on average, against a moving tank, 3.33 on average.

That squad has to cross the whole board, whether firepower from that tank before they assault, and then the same again after the first assault. Why is this a bad thing?

They can engage the tank from across the board with their own heavy weapons, they can take hits, and they will (barring very out of the ordinary bad luck) kill the tank without any response or real defensive measures possible from the tank in an assault, or ever having to bother rolling on a damage table.

A similar points cost of Genestealers inflicts just over 3 hull points on AV10.

Enough to ensure a kill on average against 90% of the vehicles in the game no matter what defensive measures they take as long as the genestealers get stuck in.

Again, why is this a bad thing? After they're busy killing that Tank they will surely die to retaliatory fire.

The problem with genestealers is that they aren't anti-tank units. People used them that way because Rending was ridiculous in 4th edition, but they were never intended to be dedicated anti-tank units, they were heavy infantry killers that had *some* ability in engaging tanks.

Grey Knights don't receive complaints because they have power weapons. They receive complaints for just about everything else.

You missed the heated discussions surrounding their book then It's been quite a sore point, at least for their cost.

Agreed. However, that Tactical Squad can continue to rain that firepower turn after turn from an effective range of 30" (move plus fire), and when the Monstrous Creature gets closer, that's when a krak grenade can be thrown or a meltagun fired. Then the assault begins where more krak grenades can be thrown and a power fist smashed into the big guys face. If we're going to talk about the reality of assaults involving Monstrous Creatures and Vehicles, these have to be considered as well.

yes, however the MC often can shoot back just like a tank can, and in CC can fight back very effectively, often more effectively than the tac squad will. The tank just sits there and takes it.

Well if your terrain is modelled correctly then things like trees should completely obscure vehicles thus rendering them safe against most shooting.

Hrm, that's a very subjective statement, there's nothing in any rules or typical convention that says this is true, and given the size/shape of GW vehicles, this would have to be very impressive terrain indeed, such that infantry couldn't really be placed in it either.

You should have 2 such pieces of terrain in your deployment zone, especially now that you choose sides before placing terrain.

The reality is that the terrain placement rules are more often than not discarded, and such impressive LoS blocking terrain isn't always available in such sufficient quantities either way. None of the trees/forest terrain available at any shop I can remember playing at would entirely block LoS to tanks sufficently aside from perhaps something like a Venom at best. Some ruins will block LoS from most angles, but not always.

Having LoS being blocked to vehicles on a routine basis with typical terrain isn't something that will be typical for the overwhelmingly vast majority of players. Even ruins you can typically see something through quite often and take a shot.

If you've got lots of tanks then they can hide each other. I'm not seeing the problem here. I'm several games into 6th and I've never thus far failed to hide tanks when I wanted. Stories of tank dying in the first turn always suggest to me that they're leaving them in the open and/or not using the terrain correctly. You get this problem in fantasy as well, where people just leave their monsters in the open and then complain about cannons being overpowered. It's the same principle.

Perhaps your terrain is much more extensive and impressive than the average gamers? I dunno what to say, it's not necessarily impossible to get 5+ cover for some, even most, but being able to hide with TLoS with the terrain available to most players at most venues just isn't possible.

A Space Marine with an autocannon costs a lot more than 15 pts.

No, I was comparing the killing power of an autocannon to the cost of these various units, not the cost of a marine with an autocannon.

This is a problem with their business model not with their rules.

It's an issue with both. The designers know full well their track record and business practices and their release model, and make no allowances for the fact that many units/armies/etc will either never get updated for that edition or won't until several years in and make no account for it. That's when you get silly things like Target Lock being Errata'd to do nothing when they have a USR that replicates it exactly.

Considering that the two armies which most often would use assault to try and destroy vehicles were Tyranids and Daemons I'd like to see you say that vehicles were easy to destroy in 5th to their face.

A couple of points if I may. First, I probably killed and lost as many tanks to marine/chaos marine krak grenades and powerfists in 5th as their shooting, this was highly effective against mech IG for instance when you could hit a gunline and attack up to 3 tanks with one assault. Tyranids and Daemons in particular have design issues, Daemons not because they can't kill tanks but because they are forced to sit there and get shot at first and their availability and entry is random and only marginally in the control of the player, and Tyranids because they shoved all the ranged AT in one slot and overcosted a ton of units based on 4E performance rather than 5E utility. Neither are a reason to change to core rules, they need codex errata.

In all seriousness no vehicles weren't easy to destroy in assault in 5th edition. I regularly had Rhinos survive assault with squads of Genestealers by keeping them moving 12".

If they were moving 12" constantly they weren't holding objectives and the units weren't shooting from within and your opponent was then controlling your movement.

Even if they only moved 6" it would take a disproportionate amount of Genestealers to inflict enough damage to kill a Rhino, and those Genestealers would then die to bolter fire in the next round.

Again, genestealers were never intended to be dedicated anti-tank units, when people make the mistake of trying to use them as such, then they run into such results. They are there to engage heavy infantry, and *can* engage tanks if they absolutely must, but they weren't an anti-tank unit. That said they were still more effective than units chocked full of Krak Grenades which did just fine.

As a result my regular opponent pretty much gave up trying to use Genestealers for a role they were originally good at

They were good in that role for 1 edition, 4th, when Rending made a mockery just about anything be it tank, infantry, MC, etc. They were never supposed to be a dedicated anti-tank unit, merely a unit that could handle it in a pinch if they had to that otherwise preferred engaging marines and terminators and other elite type units.

and instead opted for Hive Guard, Zoanthropes, and Trygons.

Which is exactly what Tyranids should be using as dedicated anti-tank.

Also, I would like to point out that if Hull Points are wounds then everything in the game has a theoretical damage limit (well, except Necrons). By adding Hull Points GW arguably brought them onto the same damage mechanic as everyone else.

The problem is that they have never been intended to be the same as everything else, and still aren't. Nothing else in the game has two different ways to kill it the way vehicles do, or have such limited mitigation the way vehicles do. Vehicles have two redundant, overlapping kill mechanics (HP's, functionally wounds, and then the damage table) and no natural save, where everything else just has wounds and typically has some sort of save.

if they gave vehicles some sort of natural save (not sure what, but perhaps it could be based on AV or something) and put the CC to-hit mechanic from 3rd-5th back in and took away the damage table, I'd be fine with HP's. As is, they're just far more punitive than they were designed to be. Either way, 3 HP's being the general across the board average is too low, it's just too easy to chew through that. If it was something like "if a unit inflicts 3 or more HP's in a single phase then it dies" or something like that, where a unit basically had to hit a tank really hard, that would mitigate a lot of the worst of it (not the CC aspect, but at least the shooting), but as is, it's just too easy to kill tanks with two overlapping kill mechanics, no saves, and a huge CC to-hit nerf that makes killing all types of vehicles an almost assured outcome for too many units in the game.

That's debatable. I'd argue that Rhinos and Chimeras (and their variants) are usually pretty cheap (35 - 130 pts)

160ish the the top end (lascannon preds, collossi, etc), average of chimera hull vehicle cost is 130ish, higher if any kit is added, which isn't cheap.

and sport anything from AV11-13 as well as a wide variety of weapons options and transport capabilities.

Yes, but that doesn't mean that they aren't still too easy to destroy for what they cost. Loadout variety doesn't have anything to do with survivability, especially when half of them were considered too expensive under 5th (e.g. devil dogs, deathstrikes, collosi, or Whirlwinds, tri-las predators, etc).

The only transports or light vehicles I know of that would be considered expensive for what they do belong to the Eldar and Tau.As has been mentioned these are 4th edition codexes living in a 6th edition world. It would have been nice to have an errata to make them cheaper but that's not the way GW does things. Since most of the armies in the game are Imperial I'd say that if the new vehicles rules are favoured towards cheaper light vehicles then they are actually balanced for most armies, as unfortunate for the rest as that is.

Except that only a couple of those vehicles in question are actually cheap light vehicles, that's the problem.

Most of my opponents can only fire approx. two anti-tank weapons at a tank each turn at best, so inflicting only one or two Hull Points per turn wouldn't be that unusual for them.

How many points are you playing at and with which armies just out of curiosity? Under 5th in 2k games I'd routinely see armies capable of engaging 5 or 6 tanks a turn with 3+ weapons, in this edition I'm just seeing people drop tanks wholesale in favor of airshows.

Except that if your vehicle is stunned on turn 2 then that vehicle can't try and destroy what is firing at it, and so the during the next turn your opponent can simply rinse and repeat, stunning your tank for the whole game until he either destroys it or gets unlucky.

This assumes they continue to hit and meet or beat it's AV, and if that was true in the previous edition it's likely true in this edition, meaning it's dead much faster.

A tank stunned or shaken for most of the game is still mostly a useless tank, and of course we're not even getting into weapon destroyed/immobilized situations.

Through all of 5th ed I never had a game where a single tank was stun-locked for as much as people are talking about. Never, not a single one, I think the most was 3 turns, and between the 5 armies I routinely played (2 IG, Eldar, Tau and Chaos Marines), the lowest vehicle count list only had 4, the highest had 17. The tank either just died taking repeated hits and my opponent eventually killed it, or the opponent's AT capability was shut down and it was then able to operate again. Never had to deal with a tank being locked down the whole game.

Now, weapon destroyed/immobilized results were one thing, but those are only slightly less likely now, it's not like they suddenly disappeared, though the weapon randomization does help in some cases.

Also, I'm fairly certain that stunned dreadnoughts couldn't assault. I may remember incorrectly however.

You are correct, however most would take Extra Armor/possession/etc.

[Phazael]

Most armies have the means to deal with the bulk of the aircraft out there, except Nids. Thats even without fortifications and allies in the mix. Heavy Bolter/Assault Cannon spam is pretty respectable and most of the fliers do not do significant damage to the enemy. The exceptions are the BA Stormraven, Vendetta, and possibly the DE bombers. The Crons can spam them a ton, but really they lose the game the moment they have to get out to hold an objective, if they go overboard with them. The DE army is in such a sad state that three bombers isn't really that big of a deal. The BA Stormraven is rough, but really it needs to hover to bennefit from the assault ability. Vendettas are the one AV12 flyer that is spammable and has enough firepower to be annoying, plus its outflank ability with built in reserves manipulation can cause serious issues.

I have to say that AV10-11 fliers, even spammable ones, are not all that. Every army in the game has a means to spamming S5-6ish firepower on the cheap and thats all you really need, especially when backed by a divination psyker (whom Crons cannot stop) giving them rerolls. The armies without flyer/anti-flyer easy access frankly have worse issues to contend with.

As far as troops downing vehicles, nearly every imperial army in the game comes with Krak Grenades stock, which will hit the fastest of vehicles on 3s at S6, which will pretty much dust anything in the game that is not rear armor 14.

[Andy089]

I think what would be ideal is: Keep the damage chart as it is, but change hull points so that every penetrating hit strips 1HP, rather than any hit whatsoever. That errata would take literally one word (putting in "penetrating" in the hull points explanation)...

[triplare]

I think what would be ideal is: Keep the damage chart as it is, but change hull points so that every penetrating hit strips 1HP, rather than any hit whatsoever. That errata would take literally one word (putting in "penetrating" in the hull points explanation)...

So glancing hits would...do nothing? And vehicles would only explode and never become wrecks?

[tibbyvc]

6th edition was kinda mind with the intent of making games faster and bloodier... vehicles dying faster is simply part of that.

That's also why vehicles fire more guns more often, and maybe this is only my poor footsloggers, but infantry tend to die quickly anyway. And as for a toughness/armor save system for vehicles, i sincerely hope GW doesn't listen to that babble. My truck certainly is nothing like myself (it's body is well maintained, mine is slightly squishy ) and tanks are extremely different than infantry, the separate stats are only logical.