6th Ed. Transports

[Turner]

I know we're all thinking it so I'll say it.

In 6th ed. I'd like to see the ability to effect units embarked in transports.

I'm sure if done properly it could be very interesting and fair. Some examples I was thinking of:
If a unit fails a moral test in a transport then they simply disembark from the transport (the regular old 2" out of it) and fall back 2d6 minus 2" (because it takes them 2" to disembark from the vehicle I guess) Nobody's going to be trapped inside the vehicle unless it's that specific situation where the enemy is within 1" of the transport's disembarking doors which in that case the fleeing unit would simply perform that other odd game mechanic where the disembark anywhere from the vehicle. (emergency disembarkation for those of you playing the home game) If at this point the enemy has completely surrounded the vehicle and the unit inside cannot disembark more than 1" away from an enemy model then they'll die just like any other unit that can properly disembark or fall back normally. If the unit make the emergency disembarkation normally they can't do anything next turn so I don't really know if it would be fair or not to allow that unit to continue to flee, maybe for added "fairness" the unit that is fleeing cannot rally that turn (unless of course they have a special rule or whatever) but that's something we could discuss in this thread.

Have a flamer? If you touch the embarking/disembarking points with it then maybe d6 models inside the transport are hit as well? I could see the ignoring of small blasts and large blasts if their templates are over the embarking/disembarking points. (Fire does has a nasty habit of getting into everything.)

Psychic Powers (oooooooooh he said the P word!) Yeah so let's not go over board maybe and try to keep it simply. If you need specific LOS to a unit or a specific model then you obviously you're going to need to target something else, but say something like the 'Nid weird Shadow In The Warp (oh wait that acts a normal and effects units in transports never mind) I mean Doom of Malan'tai's Spirit Leech or the A Hive Tyrant psychic scream where it's simply enemy models with in X inches are effected, something like that would be fair.

What are your thoughts?

[Colonel Bindoff]

I can certainly imagine transports being a little less effective in 6th, but I wouldn't like to see units breaking and disembarking to run off. If I was tucked safely in a rhino and lost control of my, er, 'nerve', I'd probably start hammering on the crew door screaming at them to get us out of there rather than stepping out into a world of shooty death. Maybe a mechanic based on this would be fun? Perhaps units embarked that break take their transport with them or something.

[LordGrise]

Thinking logically, any event that might panic the passengers has at least a chance of panicking the crew of the vehicle. Now, I would expect the two morale values to be different: We're gonna go out into THAT? vs Hang on, boys! Ol' Betsy'll get us through! But I agree, morale should at least possibly affect vehicles. Just because you're rolling in a Rhino or Predator does not mean that multi-ton 'nid bearing down on you is not impressive as hell...

[LexIcon]

I can think of a few interesting possibilities that spring from vehicles having an Ld stat. Just spitballing here:

A test to mitigate shaken/stunned.
Allow IG orders to affect embarked troops/crew.
Stop metal boxes from shielding against psy powers.
Change dangerous terrain tests from a flat d6 to an Ld check.
Opens up possibility of vehicles running away (but what would cause that? Not just shaken/stunned, hopefully)
Maybe an Ld check to ram or run over dudes (make tank shock actually dangerous)

Could be fun, if it doesn't go all sideways on us.

[Turner]

I can think of a few interesting possibilities that spring from vehicles having an Ld stat. Just spitballing here:

A test to mitigate shaken/stunned.
Allow IG orders to affect embarked troops/crew.
Stop metal boxes from shielding against psy powers.
Change dangerous terrain tests from a flat d6 to an Ld check.
Opens up possibility of vehicles running away (but what would cause that? Not just shaken/stunned, hopefully)
Maybe an Ld check to ram or run over dudes (make tank shock actually dangerous)

Could be fun, if it doesn't go all sideways on us.

Holy cow this kid's thinking outside the box! I never would have thought of some of those (barring the IG orders affecting embarked troops/crew, I mean that's just silly that it doesn't work that way to begin with) But yah those are some great ideas! The test to mitigate shaken/stunned would be interesting, that way if I rack up 15 crew shaken/stunned it wouldn't be totally worthless.

[LexIcon]

Lol, thanks man. I'm new here but I've been an armchair designer for years.

[gcsmith]

What I would like is some clarifcation of units rules affecting vehicles and IC but since this is about Vehicles ill ignore IC for now.

I would like a dedicated transport to share any generic rule like stealth that the unit has, obv have a list of rules they can share, but it makes sense that a stealth unit would have a transport modified for stealth, especially if its a dedicated transport option.

I would also like to see tank crew have leadership. used for things like resisting crew shaking, with their leadership being both a representative of their skill and bravery.

You could also have it that a vehicle can end up fleeing making them not invunerable even when the army has no real Anti tank left.

[LexIcon]

On a related note, I'd like to see more AV options that aren't also great troop-killers. Melta or darklight spam is boring, but if it kills troops and boxes then why not take it as much as possible?

Something on the order of haywire weapons would be nice, an AV weapon that isn't also a total infantry killer.

Come to think of it, this might be more of a vehicle damage chart problem than anything. If you didn't have to take so many to do the job, maybe spamming would naturally be less common? Who knows?

[gcsmith]

I would like melta armour to be an item to take on some armies, make it expensive but it would force people to shy away from some of the melta stuff.

[LexIcon]

Hmm... ok, new idea. We're seeing more expendable missiles in the game. Why not give them a bonus to pen armor? They're (theoretically) moving faster than regular man-portable rockets. And it would keep them from being used all the time, since theyre on expensive flyers and have limited ammo.

Besides, fighter jets typically hammer tanks, not the other way around. (Yeah, I know, realism has no place here, lol)