Rules Problems

[Lord Inquisitor]

Are you sure. Because I don't know about that one. Is a Battlewagon a tank?

[Madjob]

Ramming is a tank shock, only tanks can tank shock. The Ork Trukk is not a tank.

Except that a Trukk with the Reinforced Ram upgrade may make tank shocks, that's what it does. If you agree that a ram is a sort of tank shock, then a Trukk with a Reinforced Ram should be able to ram.

Interesting idea but the kinetic energy would be lost in the initial collision. If the vehicles was strong enough to roll over another (sort of like a monster truck or even treads pulling it) then it would always be able to do that whether there was something extra tacked to the front or not.

I think that whole line of argument was besides the point, looking at the general depiction of a Deff Rolla as well as the official one provided by the accessory sprue, it brings to mind something you'd find on an excavation machine, for breaking through heavy rock and soil. You're going to tell me that spinning one of those into the armor of a tank, not to mention lighter vehicles, isn't going to do anything?

Regardless I always make sure with a new opponent what their thoughts on either of these matters is before we start. If they find it too iffy to swallow I tend not to press the matter and play as though they can't do either - not much of a problem in one case as I don't equip my trukks with rams.

[Nabterayl]

Deffrollas certainly affect vehicles. The analysis goes like this:

Page 55 of the ork codex states, "Any Tank Shock made by a Battlewagon with a Deff Rolla causes D6 Strength 10 hits on the victim unit."

Page 5 of the rulebook states that a "unit" may consist of vehicles, as BuFFo has pointed out.

Page 69 of the rulebook states that ramming is a type of tank shock, as StrikerFox has pointed out.

So the question boils down to this: can a battlewagon tank shock a vehicle? In order for the answer to be yes, two things must be true.

First, the vehicle in question must be a unit, or part of a unit. Page 5 of the rulebook states that this is the case.

Second, the unit in question must be the sort of unit that can be tank shocked. It seems like this is where the debate most often centers.

The "no deffrolling vehicles" position requires its proponents to argue that vehicles cannot be tank shocked, despite or because of the fact that they can be rammed. Page 69 presents the obstacle that "ramming is a special type of tank shock."

In other words, the "no deffrolling vehicles" position collapses to arguing that vehicles cannot be tank shocked because ramming is a special type of tank shock.

This position seems obviously spurious to me. It's like arguing that a krak missile is not a missile because it's a special type of missile, or a boa constrictor is not a snake because it is a special type of snake. If B is a "special type of" A, then the set of A includes all of B. "Special type of" simply does not mean "not the same thing as but very similar to."

From a rules perspective, killing vehicles is about all a deffrolla is good for (consider that a deffrolla expects to kill only 1.9 Imperial Guardsmen on average over time, and only 0.9 MEQs - heck, it only kills an average of 2.9 gretchin per attack). From a fluff perspective, it's a fair question as to why a big spiked roller potentially allows a battlewagon to roll straight through a monolith. But on the other hand, the deffrolla doesn't behave logically with regard to infantry either. I can think of no reason why a tank shocked infantry unit suffers d6 auto-hits even if they pass their Morale test (and thus get out of the way of the tank shocking vehicle), or why an infantry unit that successfully Death or Glories a battlewagon suffers 2d6 auto-hits, but both of those cases are true. Compared to those, grinding through an enemy vehicle seems comparatively plausible to me.

[blueshift]

in the last game i played, i would've had the chance to ram my deffrolla-armed battlewagon into a land raider... but my opponents called the game early. there were also 70 of my orks between the epic clash peppered with CC (that was the catalyst for the early game calling).

nabterayl: i totally agree with you on all counts. rolling over high point cost models would almost certainly be worth it... and of course vehicles.

[Nabterayl]

Except that a Trukk with the Reinforced Ram upgrade may make tank shocks, that's what it does. If you agree that a ram is a sort of tank shock, then a Trukk with a Reinforced Ram should be able to ram.

I agree. Weirdly, a ramming trukk with a Reinforced Ram still rams at AV10, as a vehicle with a Reinforced Ram "treats its front armour as two higher than normal when resolving Death or Glory attacks (to a maximum of 14)."

This being the case, and thus the very maximum Strength hit a ramming trukk can inflict being S6, I find that trukks don't tend to ram very much anyway.

EDIT: I actually find the most important part of the Reinforced Ram to be that it allows trukks to re-roll Dangerous Terrain tests. Driving straight through Difficult Terrain as opposed to driving around it can be the difference between success or failure for a trukk-borne unit, and for 5 points I'll absolutely improve my odds of being able to do that from 83% to 97%.