I'm super busy again this weekend sorry guys. We are working on getting that letter template to Games Workshop together (and thanks for all of your submissions so far). I am impressed by the response GW Australia has given it's customers. I still don't agree with the huge increase in mark-up but at least this branch of GW appears to be listening. I'd love to see the numbers to justify such a huge mark-up increase and as I, and many others have said before, am happy to pay a preimum (i.e. 20% extra) but 50%+ seems excessive. Keep at it guys!
You'll also be happy to know my Grey Knights are coming along though finishing them this time next week will be a challenge. Regardless, here is a user e-mail about tanks in 6th edition which should generate some discussion and has some interesting insights.
Kirby,
I've been pondering your article on how GW should imporved tanks - especially those currently suffering from "one gun, then done" syndrome. I think I've come up with a solution that you may find interesting enough to share with your readership.
Before I get to that, I have one outstanding pet peeve that I really want to see GW correct in 6th Edition, I ned to address it first, as it will effect the rest of my remarks. Ahem. GW calls too many things Tanks that ain't Tanks! Just as sailors the world-over get annoyed when people misuse the terms "ship" and "boat," treadheads tend to get annoyed when people call anything with armor and tracks a "tank." GW uses tank as a vehicle classification much too broadly, the majority of the vehicle classes are based on the locomotive properties of the vehilce: walker, skimmer, flyer, and tank. This bugs me, and I want GW to switch to the much more logical classifications of: walker, skimmer, flyer, wheeled, and tracked... wheeled vehicles would move a bit faster than tracked (say 8") but only on open ground and have a harder time with difficult terrain. Tracked would be the "default" just like in 5th.
Now, on to the heart of my e-mail. As you and your readers have pointed out, there exists a signifigant problem with the way tanks work in WH40K 5th Edition. However, abalative or burnable armour seems too be too complicated and structure points seems to be overkill. I propose that all of GW's vehicles be reclassed by locomotive type (above) and that some of them be assigned the "Tank" special quality (similar to the way fast or lumbering is assigned). When a Tank suffers a Weapon Destroyed result on the damage table, the tank owner's opponent may choose to destroy one of its secondary weapons _or_ inflict one point of damage on the primary weapon. Primary weapons would require two points of damage to destroy, but would be unable to shoot during the following shooting phase (as if Stunned).
The following would be Tracked Tanks under my scheme: [IG] Leman Russ (all variants), Hellhound (all variants), Destroyer Tank Hunter, Thunderer Siege Tank, Macharius, and Malcador; [SM] Predator (all variants), Vindicator, Sabre Tank Hunter; [Chaos] Predator (all variants); [Inq] Exorcist... Skimmer Tanks under my scheme would include: [Tau] Hammerhead, Skyray; [Eldar] Falcon, Fireprism, Night Spinner, Warp Hunter... The Ork Battlewagon could be made either tracked or wheeled; the Defiler would be a Walker Tank; the Monolith would be a Skimmer Tank.
The Rhino, Razorback, Chimera, and just about every other transport in the game would NOT be Tanks. The game would finally have a real distinction between IFVs, APCs, and proper Tanks!
- Ajax
Things like this have certainly been discussed before and it would require GW to make changes to older books as new descriptions came in though it does help address the issues 'structure points' raise as well as attempting to solve the issue expensive or one gun tanks have currently.
