This has nothing to do with the 6th edition rumors running around but rather continuing to look at changes to mech as we head into 6th edition. We've done this a few times here, here and here and I'm doing so again with a quick idea :P.
The major problems of mech are pretty simple as they stand. Their survivability is good and I don't want this to change but sometimes dice can lead even simple Rhinos to taking 10 penetrating hits with nothing to show for it. On the reserve side of the scale we have expensive heavy tanks like Land Raiders who can suffer a single hit from a meltagun and die a horrible death. The same goes for expensive tanks with single guns such as the Vindicator, etc.
There have been lots of ideas bandied about in regards to fixing this such as a 2D6 system for damage rolls, reducing melta effectiveness, 4+ saves for big guns, structure points etc. but here's another I'd like to toss out and see what we think.
The major issue in regards to the expensive tanks currently is you are paying for their armor and defense yet you rarely get to use it with the ton of meltaguns running around. This not only hurts the big tanks but armies without meltaguns (hi Tyranids, Orks, Daemons, Necrons - how's it going?) so any changes in that regard need to be made with that in mind. This is a reason structure points is not a good idea and why nerfing meltaguns may be more reasonable. This still doesn't deal with the issue of a single tank taking many penetrating hits and not suffering permanent damage though. We need to solve this and there are a couple ways.
- make the damage table more damaging
- have successive shaken/stunned results pile up and cause more damage
- increase ability to do damage of vehicle chart
I don't like 1. Mech needs to be good and whilst it needs to be nerfed a little, bringing back glancing deaths is a sure way to make mech a lot worse. 2 is an obvious option but harder to keep track of and we'd have to balance this to stop 'glancing deaths' or the equivalent. What about 3 then? Sounds viable, particularly for armies without meltaguns though this could work in conjunction with a melta nerf as well (say 3D3 for pen roll?).
Here's how I'd do this then - rather than getting no bonus for beating your opponent's AV by more than one (i.e. penetrating hit) for each point or two you beat your opponent's AV by you gain a +1 bonus on the damage chart.
For example - a lascannon shoots a Rhino and rolls a 4 for a total of 13. This penetrates the Rhino easily and with the added penetration bonus (+1 for every two points beaten by), the Rhino is more likely to suffer sustained damage.
This bonus is going to obviously play more of an effect on weaker vehicles where high strength guns now have a greater advantage whilst against higher AVs where it's harder to generate penetrating hits, there is minimal to no effect (though meltaguns could still skew this). Further changes could be implemented such as bonuses for AP (i.e. AP1 rather than a flat +1 becomes a +1 for every point beaten by rather than +1 for every two points, etc.).
Thoughts?
