6th ed. Transports, part two

[LordGrise]

This was originally going to be the second half of my post on 6th Ed Transports, but I didn't want to hijack the thread. Thus...

My pet peeve with transports has always been, I blow up the transport, kill the crew deader than Elvis, leave a crater for God's sake, hit everything within x inches... and yet there's the passengers, in the middle of a blast that just turned the toughness 14 hull they were inside of into shrapnel, saving against the hit. Where, pray, did they find cover? Maybe under the crew? Maybe there was a layer of plastic explosive incorporated into the vehicle so that in the event of catastrophic damage the blast directs 95% outwards?

My version: vehicle wrecked, follow current procedure - the passengers are banged up by the impact. Vehicle destroyed, every model inside takes a wound, no save.

[Turner]

First I believe you're thinking of vehicle explodes not vehicle wrecked, but no saved allowed? That's harsh! It's not that they found cover it's that a piece of glass, hunk of metal or basically whatever is on the vehicle went flying at them and hopefully their armour they currently are wearing saved them. I'll admit that it would make more sense to change up they way the embarked unit interacts with the exploding vehicle, possibly all models are automatically wounded regardless of toughness or if they are wounded (same way they suffer a str4 AP- hit) they have to reroll successful armour saves that way high toughness models are paying the same penalties as those with low toughness?

[Kiarr]

It does seem totally rediculous that the people inside the vehicle usually get out with only a couple of casulties but I would say takes a wound but armour saves are allowed - that would signify that only the armour they are wearing saved them not that they were tough - for example terminators are designed for close area fighting so I would imagine that they could survive the shock from a close by explosion but people wearing only a vest for protection - probably should be toast

[Colonel Bindoff]

Wasn't it like that in fourth edition? I totally agree though, the idea of a transport exploding and being removed from the table then the troops emerging totally unscathed is a bit ridiculous.

[LexIcon]

Problem with that is, MEQ already have the best transports. Making it allow armor saves only makes them better than the other races in a new way. Personally, if a transport explodes and it's not open topped, everybody inside should be toast. Open topped guys get a save, not sure if it should roll to wound though.

Consider my DE: if they're standing on the raider when it explodes, they take an S3. If they're outside of it, they take an S4. The only explosion in the world that gets stronger the farther away you are, lol. Maybe it's powered by conversion beamers.

[Thiazi]

how about adding 1 to the strenght of the explsion for every armor point over 10. so av 10 works like it does not but av 14 would be strenght 8 to models inside and strenght 7 to everyone outside.

[DarkLink]

You can't think of this in terms of what makes sense. You have to think of this in what is balanced. In past editions, transports were overpriced, underpowered, and generally not very useful, except holo-falcons. Now they're a bit too good, but they're actually useful for once. That should not change.

And as with any rules, changes to transports should be as simple and easy to play as possible.

[Kawauso]

You can't think of this in terms of what makes sense. You have to think of this in what is balanced.

This a million times.

Too often people forget that the game is an abstraction and try to devise new rules or fixes to rules that make more 'logical sense' from a real-world perspective.

Turning 40k into a simulation would make the game take a lot longer and be a lot less fun.

I also agree with Darklink that transports should remain more or less where they are - if 6th tones them down just a bit that would probably be okay, but we've seen a number of codices in 5th that have made hybrid and on-foot lists just as viable as going fully mechanized, so I think this is something that comes down more to codex design.

[LexIcon]

True, codex design does factor heavily. I remember seeing a breakdown that it takes something like 8-12 missile/darklight hits to reliably down a Rhino. Too good for 35 points.

Make 'em more costly, offer better options at range to handle them, or make 'em easier to frag. Any one of these would work, but softening them is the only realistic option for a new core ruleset. The rest would take a long time to roll out via codices, and cause imbalances during the process.

[LordGrise]

Vehicles are already easy enough to kill - if you have the ordnance. If you don't... well. For myself, the one truly indispensable, must-have, would-not-consider-playing-without unit every single army I build has is the Broadside, simply and purely for that reason. I may or may not take Hammerheads, but if you see me playing without Broadsides, it's because they've been taken off as casualties - and I'm likely in deep, deep trouble.

I want to make transports a bit riskier to use, and conversely, I want a chance of a decent payoff for killing one. As it stands, if that transport makes one round of movement, it's served it's purpose, because it confered de facto invulnerability upon the unit within. I stand by my idea: if a vehicle explodes, then everybody inside takes a wound, no save. I could go along with the idea of a save if the vehicle is open-topped, the pax have a way out, after all... but I still think they ought to take significant casualties.

As an alternative, I'd grudgingly accept being able to blaze on the passengers after their vehicle goes away.