Grav weapons, discuss

[Grimwulfe]

In regards to brocken shit in general.  I have a question.

Why is that the Fantasy community can modify the game to right the wrongs on the dumb and stupid wording of GW rules, BUT 40k players are unable to do this?

Fantasy has proven time and time again that modifying the broken rules not only creates a better experience but also makes the game much more balanced and playable.  Yet 40k players find the need to follow everything GW writes as RAW or Law and is unable to do this.

[bradpowers]

Vehicles and cover saves. What's up with that? I know, right? This is pretty much the scarab swarm conga line all over again: they're probably going to FAQ it in a month, but right now, the rules are clear. And the rules were written under the assumption that vehicles only ever suffer glancing or penetrating hits, and specify that cover saves are only taken to negate glancing or penetrating hits. Since grav weapons don't inflict either, the cover save rule ridiculously does not apply. Hide your kids, hide your wave serpents; they're grav-ing everybody out here.

Perhaps they did this on purpose, Grav weapons seem to balance out heavily armored MCs, why not Wave Serpents too?     </sarcasm>

[Loranus]

The Imperial Inquisition.

[bradpowers]

Flying Space Cows.

[Thefallen]

Im not all that impressed with the grav weapons. I think they are too situational. Sure it will mess up TEq and its good againt MEq but blowes against orks,, guard, nids, demons, cultists, dark eldar, most elder... Its a cool option but for the same 15pts a plasma gun will wound most things in the game on a 2+ ap2 and it can actually glance/pen upto av13 with a +1 to the damage chart.
How many pts are the grav-cannon centurions? Cause 90 pts of cultists could effectively tarpit them the whole game.

[PhoenixFire]

Im not all that impressed with the grav weapons. I think they are too situational. Sure it will mess up TEq and its good againt MEq but blowes against orks,, guard, nids, demons, cultists, dark eldar, most elder... Its a cool option but for the same 15pts a plasma gun will wound most things in the game on a 2+ ap2 and it can actually glance/pen upto av13 with a +1 to the damage chart.
How many pts are the grav-cannon centurions? Cause 90 pts of cultists could effectively tarpit them the whole game.

Grav guns on bikes will be pretty amazing, although i'm still not a fan of bikes... and you're right they are situational, pretty useless against Nids and Daemons. But i thinnk it might be fun to plunk a bastion down in your middle of the board with grav Centurians inside.

Thanks for making a ruling on Grav Sam

[Chris]

Vehicles and cover saves. What's up with that? I know, right? This is pretty much the scarab swarm conga line all over again: they're probably going to FAQ it in a month, but right now, the rules are clear. And the rules were written under the assumption that vehicles only ever suffer glancing or penetrating hits, and specify that cover saves are only taken to negate glancing or penetrating hits. Since grav weapons don't inflict either, the cover save rule ridiculously does not apply. Hide your kids, hide your wave serpents; they're grav-ing everybody out here.

What about invulnerable saves?

[Sir_Prometheus]

Vehicles and cover saves. What's up with that? I know, right? This is pretty much the scarab swarm conga line all over again: they're probably going to FAQ it in a month, but right now, the rules are clear. And the rules were written under the assumption that vehicles only ever suffer glancing or penetrating hits, and specify that cover saves are only taken to negate glancing or penetrating hits. Since grav weapons don't inflict either, the cover save rule ridiculously does not apply. Hide your kids, hide your wave serpents; they're grav-ing everybody out here.

Obviously I disagree with this last one.  I thought I made a pretty convincing argument for why this is different than entropic strike effects that are on hit, because it takes effect at the damage stage.

Echoing Grimwulfe, I'd really rather not have blind adherence to RAW even when most of us think it's dumb.  Otherwise, sure, put all 4 heavy bolters on one side of a bation, and 27 firing points.  We know that's dumb, that's the real reason we don't allow it, not because of the rules, which are frankly poorly thought out and don't much address the issue. 

[Chris]

Cause 90 pts of cultists could effectively tarpit them the whole game.

Don't forget each centurion also has a hurricane bolter, so they could get get close to 30 shots on that cultist squad.

[andalucien]

Frankly, I 100% agree with Grimwulfe.  I think the Rules as Written are pretty bad and/or unclear, and it's an illusion to think that we actually can tell Rules as Intended.  After all, did anybody think after reading the rules that GW Intended to have Heldrakes be able to shoot behind them and ignore LOS from the head?   No.  But apparently they did.  We simply don't know what GW intends.

So that leaves Rules as They Should Be (tm).  Which apparently the fantasy community determines.  I don't know how they manage to agree, but it sounds cool.  I would love it if the same thing happened in 40k.   

[andalucien]

Q's for Sam:

- What about vehicle invul saves?  Same as cover saves?
- OK, majority armour save, good good.  How do you resolve a tie?  Best armour save wins, or worst armour save wins?  (for majority toughness, the highest toughness wins).

[Grimwulfe]

Frankly, I 100% agree with Grimwulfe.  I think the Rules as Written are pretty bad and/or unclear, and it's an illusion to think that we actually can tell Rules as Intended.  After all, did anybody think after reading the rules that GW Intended to have Heldrakes be able to shoot behind them and ignore LOS from the head?   No.  But apparently they did.  We simply don't know what GW intends.

So that leaves Rules as They Should Be (tm).  Which apparently the fantasy community determines.  I don't know how they manage to agree, but it sounds cool.  I would love it if the same thing happened in 40k.

All it takes is a community to come up with it and do it right and present it to the world.

As for your other question about which armor saves wins.  Following same line of thinking best armor save wins out.

[Thefallen]

Im not all that impressed with the grav weapons. I think they are too situational. Sure it will mess up TEq and its good againt MEq but blowes against orks,, guard, nids, demons, cultists, dark eldar, most elder... Its a cool option but for the same 15pts a plasma gun will wound most things in the game on a 2+ ap2 and it can actually glance/pen upto av13 with a +1 to the damage chart.
How many pts are the grav-cannon centurions? Cause 90 pts of cultists could effectively tarpit them the whole game.

Grav guns on bikes will be pretty amazing, although i'm still not a fan of bikes... and you're right they are situational, pretty useless against Nids and Daemons. But i thinnk it might be fun to plunk a bastion down in your middle of the board with grav Centurians inside.

Madusas will fix that or pretty much anything else in the game. 

[Sir_Prometheus]

As for your other question about which armor saves wins.  Following same line of thinking best armor save wins out.

Actually, wouldn't it be the worst?  I.e., that which is best for the target.  With tied toughness, we take the higher toughness.  With armor saves, say it was tied between 3+ saves and 4+ saves, I'd think we'd use the the 4+ save. 

[andalucien]

Let's just ask the question in and of itself, "what is a unit's majority armour save"?  If the answer is worked out similarly to how you work out "what's the majority toughness?", you would take the BEST save in case of a tie.

Of course, that actually makes it easier for grav-weapons to wound the unit, but that's just because grav weapons are all inverted from normal logic and crazy like that.   It would be like if there was a weapon that wounded on 7 minus majority toughness.