6th Ed Content Rumours

[Bushido]

2) No firing from the top hatch if the vehicle moved. It's not realistic anyways - trying to aim when you are standing up in a moving tank going through uneven terrain is an exercise in futility.

Uh, speak for yourself. I am a combat veteran, I had to fire my weapon from the passenger window of a moving humvee many times. It's much easier than it sounds. It's actually harder to fire the mounted weapons believe it or not.

[Father]

Uh, speak for yourself. I am a combat veteran, I had to fire my weapon from the passenger window of a moving humvee many times. It's much easier than it sounds. It's actually harder to fire the mounted weapons believe it or not.

Was the humvee on a road or going cross-country? How far away was your target? How fast were you going? Did you manage to hit the target? I don't doubt that one can fire from a window/hatch; the question is: can it be done with any kind of effectiveness? Also, shooting from a seated position is a lot easier than when standing up, especially if the vehicle doesn't travel on a level surface - keep that in mind.

[DrBored]

I've said this many times, but the problem is not transports per se - it's the fact that you don't ever have to leave them ever while still remaining fairly combat-effective (rhinos/chimeras especially). To nerf vehicles is to deal with the symptom, not the disease. What is needed is for the rules to make it necessary to disembark to fight and win effectively. My proposal for this would be twofold:
1) Objective-based scenarios modified so that you gain "points" for each turn a scoring unit is sitting on an uncontested objective, starting on T2. You can only score if you are not embarked in a vehicle.
2) No firing from the top hatch if the vehicle moved. It's not realistic anyways - trying to aim when you are standing up in a moving tank going through uneven terrain is an exercise in futility.

What this accomplishes is to maintain the current focus on mobile armies (good thing - 4th ed static gunlines sucked), but transports actually act like transports instead of mobile bunkers. As a knockon effect, this helps assault based armies like Daemons and Tyranids who currently suffer considerably due their limited ability to pop moving tanks.

I've played scenarios where you get points for objectives per turn. They're not fun. If you're playing a squishy army (like Dark Eldar for example) You'll be shot off of every objective you try to hold by armies that are able to sit on objectives with nice 3+ saves. That sort of scenario never favors the squishier army, and immediately gives the advantage to stationary gunline armies, whereas mobile armies suffer because they have to stop and get out of their vehicle every turn if they want to score points. Frustrating and not fun.

The other suggestion you have is... well, let's put it this way, no matter what vehicle you're in, you can only fire from the top hatch if the vehicle moved 6" or less. That's pretty realistic. If anyone is moving farther or faster than that and firing from the vehicle, they're cheating. :P Also, most vehicles only have one or two firing points. It's already an incentive to get out to fire the full squad's armament. The trouble is that the vehicles typically provide much more protection, and special weapons are the only ones you typically want to fire anyway.

Making the transports squishier or more prone to hurting the squad inside will have people using the transports for cover more than to stay inside them all game.

[Father]

I've played scenarios where you get points for objectives per turn. They're not fun. If you're playing a squishy army (like Dark Eldar for example) You'll be shot off of every objective you try to hold by armies that are able to sit on objectives with nice 3+ saves. That sort of scenario never favors the squishier army, and immediately gives the advantage to stationary gunline armies, whereas mobile armies suffer because they have to stop and get out of their vehicle every turn if they want to score points. Frustrating and not fun.

Hmm that's a point I admit I had not considered. How about making it so that open-topped vehicles still allows you to score?

The other suggestion you have is... well, let's put it this way, no matter what vehicle you're in, you can only fire from the top hatch if the vehicle moved 6" or less. That's pretty realistic. If anyone is moving farther or faster than that and firing from the vehicle, they're cheating. :P Also, most vehicles only have one or two firing points. It's already an incentive to get out to fire the full squad's armament. The trouble is that the vehicles typically provide much more protection, and special weapons are the only ones you typically want to fire anyway.

Well you precisely illustrated the problem: when all you really want to fire is the squad's special weapon, you have no incentive to get out. Removing the ability to fire from the top hatch if the vehicle moved would remedy that.

Making the transports squishier or more prone to hurting the squad inside will have people using the transports for cover more than to stay inside them all game.

Actually it will make it so that people just don't use transports instead. We saw this in 4th ed; does anyone really want to go back to that?

[Emerald Rose Widow]

Hmm that's a point I admit I had not considered. How about making it so that open-topped vehicles still allows you to score??

The only issue there is it creates the reverse problem, that the armies without open topped vehicles are at a disadvantage because they are slowed down even farther by needing to disembark to score where skimmers and open topped vehicles dont. This one is a tough one to answer though.

Balance is a pain in the tush

[DrBored]

What I'm most interested to see is how these rules actually affect list building. Will people really forego transports in favor of footslogging across the board? Will the 'nerf' to vehicles not really be that effective and leave people meched up into 6th edition? Or will, somehow, there be a happy balance?

I foresee that some armies will become forced to go it on foot while others will have superior vehicles simply by some nature that they have (like the tank suffix).

In other words, I'm afraid that the only good vehicles will be Space Marine (or equivalent) vehicles, making the Imperium the top dog all throughout 6th edition.

[Emerald Rose Widow]

In other words, I'm afraid that the only good vehicles will be Space Marine (or equivalent) vehicles, making the Imperium the top dog all throughout 6th edition.

This is unusual?

[Wolfshade]

The one thing that I am interested in and hasn't had much comment on, is if/how they are going to move the universe forwards, 5th had a huge leap from the imperium being in a steady holding state to being teetering on the edge of decline, what will become of the Astronomicon in 6th?

[musical-fool]

The one thing that I am interested in and hasn't had much comment on, is if/how they are going to move the universe forwards, 5th had a huge leap from the imperium being in a steady holding state to being teetering on the edge of decline, what will become of the Astronomicon in 6th?

If I remember correctly, this came up in either a Games day or another sort of open day at GW.
One of the main designers stated that chaos was going to be the big cheese for the next edition and that the Imperium was going to be trying to hold onto what once had been and becoming derelict.

Sorry it is so vague but this is something I remembered, hopefully it will jog some (better) memories with someone else ^^

[Defenestratus]

This is unusual?

Everyone is assuming that the imperium will get tanks with tons of these "hull points" while other races will be left out in the cold.

I suspect races like Eldar, DE, and Tau will have their own toys to put on their tanks to make them more resilient. I've suspected for a while that the holofields upgrade will function a lot more like the titan holofields which would give Eldar vehicles some kind of save against hits.

I think everyone presuming that the Imperium is going to reign supreme in the new edition is jumping the gun a bit. We have very little, very out of context information that by itself doesn't add up to much to form a truly informed opinion on.