How To Improve Space Marine Tanks

[bigtrouble]

This is a pretty hilarious topic. If you wanted a space marine tank to actually be functionally “equivalent” to an actual modern main battle tank using the current rule set, it would have to have approximately 400 wounds and would be S10 at least, and there would have to be an entire class of S10+ D50+ tank or airframe mounted weapons to deal with it. Such a vehicle would cost 5,000 points at minimum.

 

The only thing that makes sense with the current rule set to make the tanks more reasonable to field is simply to lower the points cost based on the survivability of the chassis. Wound for wound, at T8, a gladiator chassis should cost the same as 1.66 power armor wounds, because the weapon that is typically pointed at it will wound the tank on 4s and the dude on 2s. at roughly 10 points a wound for marines, that’s 200 points, plus weapons.

 

It lacks mobility on a small table. So would a MBT! No one wants to drive a tank through a city. You cannot have a game with a unit that is impossible to pick up. It’s an abstraction, and has to be treated as such, not as a realistic representation of a main battle tank.

Edited March 14, 2021 by bigtrouble

[Marshal Reinhard]

This is a pretty hilarious topic. *snip*

Good of you to contribute an utterly hilarious post for the hilarious topic then...

[Djangomatic82]

Ive been thinking of asking a buddy (he plays Orcs, Eldar and Chaos) if he's want to play a game with all non Dreadnaught-ish vehicles having double their current wounds, same points cost, probably leave their degradation tables where they are.

A Predator with 20 wounds and a land raider with 32  are still afraid of 3 Eradicators

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

today was my first game of 9th.
my impulsor was dead by the end of turn two against necrons. i don't think he had a single heavy weapon in the army.

of my handful of games i got in with my brother at the end of 8th, i've noticed that vehicles in general are not that durable or survivable. 


chimera, taurox, leman russ, all took lots of wounds from DE's basic rifles and at least 3/4 of my tracked vehicles as a guard player were killed and the last one in it's second bracket by turn 4...my sentinels were the most survivable simply because they didn't draw much fire...

today my impulsor took 6 wounds from a single round of shooting from the big 3 armed 3 legged necron HQ, and the last 5 were shaved off by the new 3 legged necron choppy bois.

vehicles in general so far have been underwhelming in my experience in the post AV era.
 

Edited March 20, 2021 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Waking Dreamer]

Ive been thinking of asking a buddy (he plays Orcs, Eldar and Chaos) if he's want to play a game with all non Dreadnaught-ish vehicles having double their current wounds, same points cost, probably leave their degradation tables where they are.

 

Hmm, so you're saying with a land raider for example, it wouldn't degrade it's BS3+ to BS4+ until 24 wounds have been chipped away first?

[Djangomatic82]

 

Ive been thinking of asking a buddy (he plays Orcs, Eldar and Chaos) if he's want to play a game with all non Dreadnaught-ish vehicles having double their current wounds, same points cost, probably leave their degradation tables where they are.

Hmm, so you're saying with a land raider for example, it wouldn't degrade it's BS3+ to BS4+ until 24 wounds have been chipped away first?

 

yeah, maybe if it makes sense for the faction or unit, alter that, make it reach degraded status sooner, but to test out if just inflating the wounds profile of vehicles helps them in the melta meta, i dont think its work i wanna do.

[Karhedron]

today my impulsor took 6 wounds from a single round of shooting from the big 3 armed 3 legged necron HQ, and the last 5 were shaved off by the new 3 legged necron choppy bois.

Did you buy it the Shield Dome for the 5+ Invulnerable save? That is pretty much mandatory on the Impulsor.

Edited March 21, 2021 by Karhedron

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well to be fair, the destroyer lord doesn't pierce armour to the point where the shield dome would have helped.

[jarms48]

Personally, I'd like to see a distinction between First-born and Primaris vehicles. First-born vehicles should be more "tanky and reliable" while Primaris vehicles should be more "high-tech".

 

Something like: 

- Rhinos, Razorbacks, Predators, Vindicators, Stalkers, Hunters, Whirlwinds, and Landraiders should all get the old Self Repair ability the Rhino use to have. I would simplify that rule to read: "If this model has lost any wounds, it regains 1 lost wound."

 

- Hunters, Predators, Stalkers, Vindicators, and Whirlwinds should be increased to 12 wounds.

 

- Landraiders specifically should be increased to 18 wounds. Landraiders should also get a 12 Inch Move and the Assault Vehicle ability to make them more viable as transports. Even with all this they'd probably still be overcosted. I think around 260 points would be fairer for the base variants. 

 

That should give the classic tracked Space Marine vehicles some much needed durability. I'd only give the tracked vehicles the Self Repair rule, due to their simpler designs. 

 

In terms of Primaris vehicles:

- The Impuslor is simple, it should be increased to 12 wounds and give it Auto Launchers.

- The Gladiator should be given Auto Launchers by default and have the option to take a Shield Dome.

- Repulsors should be increased to 18 wounds and have the option to take a Shield Dome.

 

Basically, Primaris vehicles cost more but all of them have the potential for invul saves. 

 

 

Hmmm, interesting ideas here.... what if they retroactively gave vehicles either "Light Vehicle," "Medium Vehicle," or Heavy Vehicle" key words, kind of like how they retroactively added "Blast" to weapons across the game?


"Light Vehicles" would be T5-T6 (i.e. Speeders, Buggys, etc) and would ignore AP-1

"Medium Vehicles" would be T7 (i.e. majority of vehicles in the game) and would ignore AP-1 and AP-2

"Heavy Vehicles would be T8+ (i.e. Land Raiders, Custodes unique Dreads, Super Heavies, etc.) and would ignore AP-1, AP-2, and AP-3.

This would make all vehicles better against small arms, medium vehicles more survivable, and the really tough ones, like Land Raiders, require truly dedicated anti-tank weapons to bring them down.

 

I like this, but I feel like it should be bumped back. Light vehicles shouldn't ignore any AP, medium vehicles would ignore AP-1, and heavy vehicles would ignore AP-2. Anything more and it starts to really hurt many dedicated AT weapons. Like lascannons or demolishers. 

Edited April 25, 2021 by jarms48

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Personally, I'd like to see a distinction between First-born and Primaris vehicles. First-born vehicles should be more "tanky and reliable" while Primaris vehicles should be more "high-tech".

 

Something like:

- Rhinos, Razorbacks, Predators, Vindicators, Stalkers, Hunters, Whirlwinds, and Landraiders should all get the old Self Repair ability the Rhino use to have. I would simplify that rule to read: "If this model has lost any wounds, it regains 1 lost wound."

 

- Hunters, Predators, Stalkers, Vindicators, and Whirlwinds should be increased to 12 wounds.

 

- Landraiders specifically should be increased to 18 wounds. Landraiders should also get a 12 Inch Move and the Assault Vehicle ability to make them more viable as transports. Even with all this they'd probably still be overcosted. I think around 260 points would be fairer for the base variants.

 

That should give the classic tracked Space Marine vehicles some much needed durability. I'd only give the tracked vehicles the Self Repair rule, due to their simpler designs.

 

In terms of Primaris vehicles:

- The Impuslor is simple, it should be increased to 12 wounds and give it Auto Launchers.

- The Gladiator should be given Auto Launchers by default and have the option to take a Shield Dome.

- Repulsors should be increased to 18 wounds and have the option to take a Shield Dome.

 

Basically, Primaris vehicles cost more but all of them have the potential for invul saves.

 

 

 

 

Hmmm, interesting ideas here.... what if they retroactively gave vehicles either "Light Vehicle," "Medium Vehicle," or Heavy Vehicle" key words, kind of like how they retroactively added "Blast" to weapons across the game?

 

 

"Light Vehicles" would be T5-T6 (i.e. Speeders, Buggys, etc) and would ignore AP-1

 

"Medium Vehicles" would be T7 (i.e. majority of vehicles in the game) and would ignore AP-1 and AP-2

 

"Heavy Vehicles would be T8+ (i.e. Land Raiders, Custodes unique Dreads, Super Heavies, etc.) and would ignore AP-1, AP-2, and AP-3.

 

This would make all vehicles better against small arms, medium vehicles more survivable, and the really tough ones, like Land Raiders, require truly dedicated anti-tank weapons to bring them down.

I like this, but I feel like it should be bumped back. Light vehicles shouldn't ignore any AP, medium vehicles would ignore AP-1, and heavy vehicles would ignore AP-2. Anything more and it starts to really hurt many dedicated AT weapons. Like lascannons or demolishers.

Excellent ideas!