They start off by showing an example with the Necron Annihilation Barge.
So yeah, you can already see the differences. The damned thing is Heavy Support and moves 12". Wow. Oh, and it has WS despite being a vehicle! And a whooping Leadership of 10. Its save of 4+ isn't that good, and it only has 8 Wounds, but it was never meant to be as sturdy as a Leman Russ tank, so no complaints there.
Basically, the new changes mean that vehicles can fight in close combat now. What happens is that tank shock and ram are gone. Instead, vehicles try to run over enemies in close combat, or at least slam into them and send them flying. That's why they tend to have high Strength. I bet Leman Russ tanks have Strength 7 or so, because it'll hurt a lot when you get crushed under their treads. Remember the famous phrase, "what I cannot crush with words I will crush with the tanks of the Imperial Guard!"? Now we can crush them in close combat with our relativelt high Strength! Whoopee!
Of course, the problem is actually landing a damned hit. The Annihilation Barge actually has 3 Attacks, surprising enough. I think a Leman Russ tank will only have 1 or 2 attacks at most...but then again, these could represent the number of units the Leman Russ tank hits when it attempts to collide with them. Cue Truck-kun from the infamous isekai Japanese web novels where protagonists always die by getting hit by a truck before reincarnating in a fantasy world.
Anyway, the problem is the WS. As you can see, the Annihilation Barge has a WS of 6+. Leman Russ tanks too will have the same lousy WS. So good luck hitting someone with my tanks. Ugh.
On the other hand, Walkers such as Sentinels, Dreadnoughts, Deff Dreads and Imperial Knights will continue to have good WS and probably Strength and Attack characteristics, so don't worry about that. Oh, it does seem that Ork vehicles have the options to turn their vehicles into close combat specialists if you add a Deathroller, so you can upgrade your vehicles to be a beast in melee. Nice.
Now the next thing annoys me. Okay, first vehicles have their own movement and can advance like any other units. As you saw, Annihilation Barges have a 12" movement. They can shoot. But they are no longer Relentless. That means they suffer the -1 penalty to shooting heavy weapons. This sucks for me because Leman Russ tanks already have a terrible Ballistic Skill of 4+ (or BS3 if you're talking about 7th Edition). Now heavy weapons will only hit on a 5+, which makes it harder to justify taking Leman Russ tanks. Imagine rolling a 1 for the D6 hits for a battle cannon, only to have to roll a 5+ for that single shot to hit. Just...no. Furthermore, if the Punisher Gatling cannon remains Heavy, now only 6 shots will hit, almost half of the formerly 10 shots out of 20 during the BS3 era. That's quite the heavy nerf for Leman Russ tanks.
Of course, the Leman Russ tanks might regain their Lumbering Behemoth rule and be the few exceptions that do not suffer the -1 penalty to shooting heavy weapons, but I won't be holding my breath on this. Well, the Emperor provides. I guess. But the Imperial Guard will suffer from fielding lots of tanks when most of our shots will miss like Orks. Ugh. This is so painful. Worse, we don't have twin-linked weapons, so while the Space Marine vehicles such as Predators and Land Raiders get a boost with twin-linked weapons, we...end up either hitting half the time when not moving, and suffering worse when we don't move. Jeez...the life of an Imperial Guardsman. Sigh.
On the other hand, Leman Russ tanks can now charge (and so can our Chimeras, Taurox and other vehicles). They can charge and slam into things just like the old tank shock, but they use the fight rules for the Fight phase just like any other unit. However, with the WS 6+ to hit, I will recommend that you don't charge your Leman Russ tanks into units.
Furthermore, even though they didn't explicitly state it, from the "all these rules apply to vehicles as well" I can predict that vehicles in combat can fall back, but just like infantry, they will not be able to shoot when falling back from close combat. So if your close combat units tie up my tanks in combat, and I try to fall back...it means my precious tanks won't be firing their big guns in my shooting phase. Isn't this a gigantic nerf to Leman Russ tanks, or to vehicles (except Walkers) in general? Not only can we not hit any one with the poor WS 6+, we can't shoot back at anything when breaking free from combat? Oh boy...I'm so not looking forward to this change.
Other than that, there isn't much changes to the roles of vehicles. They are still pretty cool, and more durable than in 7th Edition (hooray for the removal of hull points and vehicle damage table, gaining an armor save and more wounds!). But it's best to utilize them alongside infantry. You know, the infamous bubble wrapping of Guardsmen around Leman Russ tanks to protect them from assault? Ugh. I don't really want to use infantry. Well, I have Skitarii, so never mind. And my Kamikaze Troopers are meant for surgical strikes, not to bubble wrap my tanks. Sigh.
Funnily enough, there's no mention of what will be covered tomorrow, and I'll be too busily watching Alien: Covenant anyway, so...if there's anything, I'll still keep you guys posted. The Emperor protects, and let's hope he gives our Leman Russ tanks the Lumbering Behemoth rule or we Guardsmen are well and truly screwed.
At least Onager Dunecrawlers are still viable. I hope. And Imperial Knights. Hell yeah, Imperial Knights will rule the battlefield!
A couple points where I disagree with you (and remember, I get Leman Russ tanks for my Cults so we are in the same boat, haha).
ReplyDeleteYes hitting on a 5+ sucks, but remember vehicles can split fire, which means you can move 12", fire the Punisher at one unit, the Heavy Bolter at another, and each sponson at two more. Sure they all hit on 5+ now, and that hurts the main gun, but its an upgrade to all the other weapons are 5+ instead of 6+ for Snap-Firing, so that's a boost.
In addition now that you can fire each of those weapons at different targets your Heavy Bolter gets to hit an infantry unit instead of being wasted on the front armour of a tank.
I think we'll be very happy with our tanks :)
I think you forget that Leman Russ tanks only move 6", and being heavy vehicles, they can fire all their weapons as if they're not moving. They don't snapfire their sponson and hull weapons. If someone tells you otherwise or you've been playing that way in 7th Edition, I think you've made a mistake!
DeleteOf course, I don't know how this changes in 8th Edition, but make sure you know that in 7th Edition, Leman Russ tans only move 6", and they can fire all their weapons without snapfiring after moving. The only exceptions are Ordnance weapons, so Leman Russ Main Battle Tanks and Leman Russ Demolisher can only snapfire their hull (and sponson) weapons after firing their main ordnance weapons. The rest can fire their sponson and hull weapons just fine regardless of moving or firing their main weapons.
For example, my Punisher moves 6" and it fires its 20 Punisher rounds, 9 heavy bolter shots at a single unit at BS3 (BS4 if it's within 12" of my Tank Commander in the Emperor's Fist Armored Company). There's sno snapfiring its heavy bolters because my Leman Russ Punisher is heavy type.
But yeah, the split fire is cool, but I don't know how it's going to work for my Leman Russ Punisher tank because they are anti-infantry.
Oh, yah I had forgotten that. I don't even own a Leman Russ haha.
DeleteOk that does change things, however I would bet that if Lemans retain the Lumbering Behemoth rules and still only move 6", then they will probably ignore the -1 to Hit rules. I'm betting Monoliths will too.
However, they lost their weak rear AV so there is less need to move them, they just got a LOT more durable.
I hope so too!
DeleteBut I use my tanks to capture objectives, and my Leman Russ Punisher tanks (and Leman Russ Demolishers, which I don't own) only have a range of 24", so they have to move or they'll not be hitting anything.