Vehicles

[Grenadier]

There's certain things about the rules for vehicles which I hate and love.

I hate that strength 5 now is a main weapon. I remember when it wasn't.

I hate that you can now assault it from any side and the hits go on the rear. It was logical when the hits came on the facing you'd be in contact with.

I love that the damage charts have been improved to make them more survivable in battle. And hope it'll continue to be so in the next edition.

I'm not too fond of the vehicle squadron concept. To think my tanks in a squad must all fire at the same target. And since my tanks are always a mix to make them more versatile it often means some weapons may be ineffective depending on the target. The upside is they're a little safer now in squadrons.

And it never made much sense to me that a vehicle must turn all of its guns on one target. You have crewmen for each gun. And sponsons. Logically you'd think they could fire at will when targets are presented. The Baneblade and other superheavy tanks can and so they perform more like you'd expect a vehicle too.

I would like to see better upgrades for vehicles. I recall an Imperial Guard Armored company that had doctrines for the tanks. And some essentially worked like vehicle upgrades. I'd not mind seeing these brought back to life in the form of additional upgrade options. Like anti-mag coating on your armor making it harder for mines and bombs.

[Psychosplodge]

*cough* 2nd edition vehicle rules *cough*

Not very survivable though...but definitely fun.lol

[Grenadier]

From what I gather second edition rules were very wild. I heard you had to roll to see what happens when using a flamer. Like guys on fire catching or guys on fire and stuff.

[Shotgun Justice]

2nd ed = much smaller forces, many many more dice rolls and cards and templates and counters and tables and charts and stupid triangular dice and and and

2nd ed was great craic but slow unless you knew it very well.
As for 2nd ed vehicles, every vehicle had it's own datafax - unit entry printed on a card that included individualised damage tables for every vehicle. The amount of times my leman russ turret got blown off and landed on the head of something important was unreal.

[LordGrise]

The Tau have this thingie called a 'target lock'... Yeah, for five points our Hammerheads can fire on as many targets in one turn as we have weapons to fire... oh, and for a further ten points we got this thingie called a "multi-tracker" that lets us do it as a fast vehicle...

::savoring the irony::

[Grenadier]

When the Tau first came out I did have a small army and was highly impressed with their vehicles.

[Thornblood]

I like that russ' have to fire at the same target because otherwise the guard shooting phase would last so much longer. I cant explain it with realism but I like the rule.

As for squadrons, just take squadrons of one vehicle. Problem solved. If you have more vehicles that sops that from working, then its probably helps as a handicap to counter the of overpoweredness a vehicle squadron.

Anyway by the same logic each member of a squad could fire at a different target. Which is realistic but stops us plaaying big battles and starts us playing skirmish games. 40k is more and more tooled up for bigger games. a tank crew, or a squadron of vehicles are, essentially, a squad.

[Grenadier]

What measurable value is there in tank shocking with vehicles? I've never attempted it despite all my many tanks. From what I understand you cannot kill models if you try to tank shock. Which ruins the fun. I want to grind people into paste beneath my tracks! It seems all it does is maybe break up front lines temporarily. But doing so puts your vehicle in great danger as in 40k basic infantry have a lot of power to kill a tank in an assault. I lose most of my tanks to being assaulted by my opponent. Despite what direction he actually assaults me from the hits always go against my rear armor. It's a certainty then if you let your tank anywhere close to infantry it is going to be taken out. So what real value is there in tank shock?

The only good thing about tank versus infantry action is the very rare occasion someone elects to do a death or glory and they fail at it.

[Hellstorm]

I think they need to make tank shock an initiative test or take a wound kinda thing. It would be much more realistic but unfortunately not very balanced.

[Skewiff]

I get tired fast of having to declare the tank shock distance, a random throw back rule - just move the bloody thing!