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Author Topic: Vehicle durability in 6th edition  (Read 11821 times)

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Offline DanceK

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #40 on: July 24, 2012, 06:59:42 PM »
Did anyone mention Necrons yet? Aren't their Gauss weapons going to shred any mechanized army?

Offline KJQ

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #41 on: July 24, 2012, 07:30:52 PM »
Did anyone mention Necrons yet? Aren't their Gauss weapons going to shred any mechanized army?

Yes they are and do.  I think the only way to deal with them effectively now is to stand way out of their range and shoot (e.g. Thunderfire cannons, ML devs), and/or get into assault quickly (e.g. Ironclads in Lucius Pods; Vanguard Veterans).  I haven't played against them myself yet though, so this is theory.  In general I'm likely going to play a lot more drop pods than rhinos this edition.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2012, 07:32:05 PM by KJQ »
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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #42 on: July 25, 2012, 07:16:16 AM »
The point about necrons shows that each army will have its own tactics for dispensing vehicles.

Necrons will be capable of glance-killing lots of vehicles! other than gauss, they can also do volume of fire (tesla destructors) and have other dedicated glance-generation in the form of voltaic staffs. However, they similarly generally lack melta or dedicated (and efficient) anti-tank weaponry outside of some very specific items (ie warscythes).

However, the ability to kill through glancing means that necrons can fight in a different fashion. All it's done is open up options and methods.

Offline SeekingOne

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #43 on: July 26, 2012, 07:26:59 AM »
Last night I finally got to update my maths program to accommodate all tricks of the 6th edition's new vehicle rules. Then I did some massive numbers crunching for the durability of different types of vehicles against different types of (ranged) weapons, with the idea of both figuring out how vehicles would fare in this edition and comparing it to what we had in 5th.

The results that I got can be roughly summed up in but a few statements, as the differences between 5th and 6th mechanics actually appeared to be quite consistent across the board.

1. For practically all vehicles that became HP3, we can roughly consider their durability in 6th being 1.5 times lower than it used to be in 5th. It is almost precisely so for AV12 vehicles, slightly worse for AV11 and AV10 vehicles and somewhat better for AV13 vehicles. This effectively means that right now it's about 1.5 times easier to kill a 3HP vehicle in the open than it would've been in 5th. This also means that right now killing said vehicle protected by 5+ cover would be roughly as easy as it was to kill it in the open in 5th (still slightly easier, but not by much).

Example:
In 5th edition 12 krak missiles fired at BS4 had ~60% chance to kill a Wave Serpent in the open.
In 6th the same 12 BS4 kraks have ~89% chance to kill a a Wave Serpent in the open, and ~65% to kill it when it is protected by 5+ cover save of whatever origin.

2. For practically all vehicles that became HP2, we can roughly consider their durability in 6th being 2 times lower than it used to be in 5th. In particular, AV10 open-topped HP2 vehicles, compared to 5th, are more than twice as easy to bring down by massed S4 fire and almost twice as easy to bring down by massed S5 fire. For higher S weapons the difference is smaller but that's because even in 5th the chances of such weapons killing that vehicle were too high to double them - probability doesn't go over 100% :) And while 5+ save slightly improves the situation, it still doesn't raise the durability anywhere close to 5th ed. level, especially against weapons of S6+.

3. Specifically in regards to 5+ saves of all kinds, those saves only make some really noticeable difference for vehicles with 3HP, and then only against weapons that glance no better than on 4+. And of course they don't make even nearly as much difference as 5th edition's 4+ cover used to make, for any vehicle whatsoever.

And that's about it, really. Of course there are endless minor details, and of course for each vehicle the situation is slightly different - but those three statements pretty much sum up the general picture of the change in vehicles' durability that the 6th edition has brought us.

Oh, and about LRs - those became softer as well, but in a very selective manner. They would die considerably easier and quicker to multiple lascannons and especially lances. The effectiveness of close-range meltas has remained virtually the same. When it comes to LR-killing, lances and meltas now correspond to each other roughly as 2:1 - i.e. 10 BS4 lances have about the same chance of killing an LR as 5 BS4 meltas at close range (~71%). The effectiveness of lascannos is about two times lower.
S8 is still kind of useless against LRs - you'll need 30+ S8 shots at BS4 to strip 4HP with any degree of reliability.

Feel free to PM me if you're interested in any specific numbers.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2012, 07:33:54 AM by SeekingOne »
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Offline Lazarus

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #44 on: July 26, 2012, 08:13:07 AM »
Nice write up. I'm curious to see how to figure in other factors that reduce the overall survivability of vehicles as well such as close combat buffs (hitting on 3+) etc. Also, there are simply more weapons out there capable of doing real damage to vehicles that did not do so before. Stuff like blast damage being at full strength and weapons that were AP- or glancing only etc.

Another thing to take into account is the damage table. Twice, I have seen a double immobilized result destroy a 3 HP tank despite causing no other damage. In 5th, that would be an immobilized and weapon destroyed result with the tank still firing and potentially contesting, not to mention not giving up KP's or VP's etc.
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Offline Thaldin

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #45 on: July 26, 2012, 12:01:29 PM »
Now it's my understanding that certain folks can "repair" hull points.  I wonder if we see a rise in the use of these characters to help protect the vehicle investment for certain armies.

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #46 on: July 26, 2012, 01:13:46 PM »
2x Techpriest is already in my army to keep my three sit and shoot Russes up.
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Offline Idaho

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #47 on: July 26, 2012, 01:48:22 PM »
Example:
In 5th edition 12 krak missiles fired at BS4 had ~60% chance to kill a Wave Serpent in the open.
In 6th the same 12 BS4 kraks have ~89% chance to kill a a Wave Serpent in the open, and ~65% to kill it when it is protected by 5+ cover save of whatever origin.

Nice use of maths!

This kinda proves why 6th edition works for me; it should never take 12 Krak Missiles to destroy a Wave Serpent only 60% of the time!

Offline Skankin_Catachan

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #48 on: July 26, 2012, 02:09:02 PM »
The one thing i've been loving is the way vehicle squadrons have some better survivability due to LOS. if you can only see one sentinel/war walker/ etc, that is the only one that can be killed. I also love the fact that immobilization results do not kill squadroned vehicles. Makes squadroned russes not that worthless (even though russ squadrons are mostly overkill for their targets).

Offline KJQ

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #49 on: July 26, 2012, 02:27:49 PM »
Now it's my understanding that certain folks can "repair" hull points.  I wonder if we see a rise in the use of these characters to help protect the vehicle investment for certain armies.

I'll be putting one in my LRC along with 5-6 termies & IC.  If my TFC gets killed, I'll be running its TM to the nearest damaged vehicle too.
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Offline kyle vp

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #50 on: July 26, 2012, 11:04:42 PM »
I'd be very interested in seeing comparative numbers for # of shots fired from 1-20 for krak's,  comparing 5th to 6th.   I suspect that we may be more durable for the first few shots, but I'm curious to see how many shots it takes to cross that line.

Offline wper34

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #51 on: July 27, 2012, 12:56:21 AM »
2x Techpriest is already in my army to keep my three sit and shoot Russes up.

Better yet, if you take vanilla SM allies, you can have 1 Master of the Forge & 1 Techmarine to help with the repair... The Russess would then be almost indestructible! (Of course, to blow them up for good, one would have to penetrate the tanks & hope for good results OR put a lot of effort into destroying them in one turn.)

I'm sure people who base their armies on Adeptus Mechanicus theme will find this edition more enjoyable & very fluffy gamingwise! :D

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #52 on: July 27, 2012, 02:33:42 AM »
Example:
In 5th edition 12 krak missiles fired at BS4 had ~60% chance to kill a Wave Serpent in the open.
In 6th the same 12 BS4 kraks have ~89% chance to kill a a Wave Serpent in the open, and ~65% to kill it when it is protected by 5+ cover save of whatever origin.

Nice use of maths!

This kinda proves why 6th edition works for me; it should never take 12 Krak Missiles to destroy a Wave Serpent only 60% of the time!

Agreed. But even so we see that when using the cover save that it will almost always have its only 5% more likely to die. Pretty much an insignificant difference in the context.

The bigger issue to remember with this kind of so called 'mathhammer' is that it's making assumptions in order to produce results. You won't fire 12 simultaneous missile shots, nor will you likely fire 12 single shots either.

 And the choice to use the combined chance of multiple weapons is a clear effort to sabotage 6th edition in comparison to 5th. If we looked at one shot kill chances with missiles then wave serpents would be much much more durable than they used to be.

40k has too many variables and environmental changes for this kind of analysis to actually have much practical application. Does this information tell you if you should run a wave serpent through a gauntlet of long fangs? Maybe, maybe not, depends why you're doing it to make it worth it.

Math works well to guide on specific examples. Is unit X likely to beat unit Y if they charge, is it worth going over there to bladestorm those guys etc.
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Offline SeekingOne

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #53 on: July 27, 2012, 04:17:05 AM »
@Lazarus
Nice write up. I'm curious to see how to figure in other factors that reduce the overall survivability of vehicles as well such as close combat buffs (hitting on 3+) etc. Also, there are simply more weapons out there capable of doing real damage to vehicles that did not do so before. Stuff like blast damage being at full strength and weapons that were AP- or glancing only etc.

Thanks!
Factoring in stuff like changes to close combat attacks into the general picture would require a tricky step of detrmining a proportion between ranged attacks and melee attacks that hit a vehicle. I.e. how often does vehicle normally get attacked in melee compared to being shot at? Can you think of a rough approximation based on your wealth of tournament practice?
As for me, I guess I could say than in my experience the proportion between the number of times a vehicle gets attacked at  range and in melee is about 3:1 for transports that advance towards the enemy and maybe 5:1 for fire support gunships sitting in the back.

Quote
Another thing to take into account is the damage table. Twice, I have seen a double immobilized result destroy a 3 HP tank despite causing no other damage. In 5th, that would be an immobilized and weapon destroyed result with the tank still firing and potentially contesting, not to mention not giving up KP's or VP's etc.
This I did. My calculations of durability of 3HP vehicles do factor in the chance of getting it killed by 2 Immob results.
Other damage results don't really count towards wrecking of a vehicle, since a 3HP vehicle with even one weapon will run out of HP simultaneously with suffering the 3rd "Weapon Destroyed" result.

@kyle vp
I'd be very interested in seeing comparative numbers for # of shots fired from 1-20 for krak's,  comparing 5th to 6th.   I suspect that we may be more durable for the first few shots, but I'm curious to see how many shots it takes to cross that line.

Your assumtion is spot on. It is indeed somewhat harder to kill a vehicle with a random pot-shot or two now than it used to be in 5th.

For AV12 vehicles in the open, the breaking point is at 5 BS4 kraks. 5 kraks is the smallest number of shots where the chance of killing an AV12 vehicle in 6th becomes slightly higher than it was in 5th (35.4% vs 31.9%). From this point on the difference becomes increasingly higher to 89.3% vs 60.3% at 12 shots. At 13-14 shots and on the difference starts shrinking again due to the chance of killing a vehicle in 6th already being close to its 'ceiling', while the 5th edition value keeps slowly growing.
Basically, 12 S8 standard (i.e. AP3 or worse) shots at BS4 may be considered the optimal amount of firepower needed to rather reliably kill one AV12 vehicle per turn.

Funnily enough, for AV12 vehicles in cover, the breaking point is also at 5 BS4 kraks. 5 kraks is, again, the smallest number of shots where the chance of killing an AV12 vehicle in 5+ cover in 6th becomes slightly higher than it was to kill an AV12 in 4+ cover (!) in 5th (18.96% vs 17.2%). The difference here keeps growing right up to 19 kraks (76.8% for 6th vs 51.2% for 5th) and then starts shrinking.

For AV11 both breaking points are also at the same level both for the open ground and for cover. It is at 4 BS4 kraks that give 40.1% for 6th vs 37.5% for 5th for the open ground and 21,6% for 6th vs 20,4% for 5th for 5+ and 4+ cover respectively.
The max difference between the kill probability in 6th and in 5th is reached at 9 kraks for the open ground (91,4% (6th) vs 65,4% (5th)) and at 14 kraks for cover (91,0% (6th) vs 55,1 (5th)).

EDIT
Just realised that the breaking points described above only exist for weapons of AP3 or worse. For AP2 and AP1 weapons there is no single point where chance of killing a vehicle in 6th is lower than it was in 5th. That's because the chances of exploding a vehicle with a roll on damage table are the same for AP2 and AP1 as they were in 5th, and, starting from 2 shots, in 6th on top of the chance of explosion you get also chances to get wrecked by losing all HP and/or double Immob.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2012, 04:53:45 AM by SeekingOne »
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Offline Lazarus

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #54 on: July 27, 2012, 04:48:52 AM »
Quote
how often does vehicle normally get attacked in melee compared to being shot at? Can you think of a rough approximation based on your wealth of tournament practice?


This could wildy vary depending on what you are playing and who you are playing against. My mech Eldar in 5th edition were often attacked in melee but mainly because I allowed it to happen. Usually a "wagon circle" bait move to entice assault armies closer. OR, it could be that I need to score an objective which means weathering an assult here or there.

In 5th, just the fact that I moved over 6" meant that an enormous ammount of attacks would miss. Add in the glancing system and you could realistically shrug off quite a bit of damage without even factoring in stuff like Holo Fields.

Lets say I got attacked by 12 Orks with 48 attacks. Statistically, 8 of them hit and I'm likely looking at a glance or two with pretty much ZERO chance of being destroyed. Now, those same Orks would score around 30+ hits and likely 5-6 glances which = 100% chance of destruction. They could have landed nearly 50% less glances than they did and still destroy the tank.

Every tank that has been assaulted in every game I have seen and played in on both sides has been destroyed every time with ridiculous ease.

I'm also not seeing the 5+ cover saves helping all that much. I'm generally ulucky in that department anyways...lol
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Offline Unleash Mayhem

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #55 on: July 27, 2012, 06:16:28 AM »
Tanks can still get 4+ cover saves if they are hiding behind the right kind of cover, like and aegis defense line or similar, increasing their durability, especially for low profile long range tanks like predators.

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #56 on: July 27, 2012, 07:24:47 AM »
Also don't forget that a tank only needs to be covered by 25% in order to benefit from cover. So, whilst the cover saves in general might be lower, it should be easier to secure the benefits of it.

Between this, and the jink save, it's pretty certain that lots of times vehicles will be having 5+ saves. It does mean that if you have weapons that are able to ignore cover through one means or another then these will be much more useful.


Offline Lazarus

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #57 on: July 27, 2012, 07:34:07 AM »
Yeah, it may be easier to get cover (in theory) but it just hasn't played out that way in most of the games I have seen short of setting up an Aegis line etc.

5+ cover only stops 1 of 3 attacks from getting through and even less if you are unlucky. Cover ignoring weapons / skills are making their way back into lists. I'm seeing a resurgance of Markerlight use.


What I am seeing in general is a mass shift away from vehicles. I see lots of foot lists, or certainly changes in what types of vehicles were being used. Less Rhinos and more Drop Pods for example. I see mass firepower lists designed to deal with light AV & troops at the same time, followed by some dedicated AT weaponry.


Also regarding cover: I'm seeing flyers (especially stuff with straffing run like Vultures) tearing up ground targets like Tanks and coming from angles that seem to by pass the cover anyways.
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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #58 on: July 27, 2012, 09:46:18 AM »
Vehicles can get a 3+ Cover now too, although they probably have crap fire arcs when they are in cover that good :)
Anyway......

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Re: Vehicle durability in 6th edition
« Reply #59 on: July 27, 2012, 09:51:43 AM »
Yeah, I've done Manticores with Camo Netting behind an Aegis line to get 3+ cover.
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