Tides of Iron - An Armored Warfare Supplement

[Julian Sharps]

I had a really witty preface to this OP written, but Proboards ate my post while I was writing it, so here's the meat of the matter: I've come up with an alternative ruleset for vehicles in Warhammer 40K that actually makes maneuver and turrets relevant to how we use our death machines.

Bear in mind that this is something I came up with literally in the last few hours. It has not been tested at all. Playtesting is welcome.

Tide of Iron - Warhammer 40K Armored Warfare Supplement

General
- Rules are as per the Warhammer 40K Core Rulebook unless described otherwise.

Movement
- Vehicles may make one turn (up to 90 degrees) at the beginning and another at the end of their turn.

Shooting
- Vehicles may not turn in the Shooting Phase.

- Glancing Hits roll on the damage chart. Penetrating Hits, in addition to rolling on the damage chart, inflict the loss of a Hull Point.

- New Damage Chart:

D66 Result	Effect
11-12	Crew Shaken - The vehicle can only fire snap shots until the end of its next turn.
13	Crew Stunned - The vehicle can only fire snap shots and may not turn, move faster than Combat Speed (Zooming Flyers must move 18"), or move Flat Out in its next turn.
14	Communicator Slain - For the rest of the game, the vehicle may not benefit from special rules from other models that affect it. If this result has already been rolled, treat this as a Crew Shaken result instead.
15	Commander Slain - For the rest of the game, weapons on the vehicle may only fire snap shots if the vehicle moved in the previous Movement Phase. Additionally, all special rules gained because the vehicle is a Character and/or your Warlord are lost. If this result has already been rolled, treat this as a Crew Stunned result.
16	Crew Slain - The vehicle is destroyed. If the vehicle is a Zooming Flyer, it will immediately Crash and Burn!
21-22	Weapon Disabled - One randomly selected weapon in the shooting unit's line of sight may not fire next turn. If the vehicle has no usable weapons, treat this as a Crew Stunned result instead.
23	Mounting Jammed - One randomly selected weapon in the shooting unit's line of sight may not change its orientation for the remainder of the game. If the weapon does not have a turret or swivel mount, or if this result had already been rolled for this weapon, treat it as a Weapon Disabled result instead. If the vehicle has no usable weapons, treat this as a Crew Stunned result instead.
24	Weapon Destroyed - One randomly selected weapon in the shooting unit's line of sight may not be fired for the remainder of the game. If the vehicle has no weapons, treat this as a Crew Stunned result instead.
25	Ammunition Cook-Off - One randomly selected weapon in the shooting unit's line of sight may not be fired for the remainder of the game. In addition, the vehicle loses a Hull Point. If the vehicle has no weapons, it loses a Hull Point instead.
26	Ammunition Chain Reaction - One randomly selected weapon in the shooting unit's line of sight may not be fired for the remainder of the game. In addition, the vehicle loses a Hull Point and suffers a Crew Stunned result. If the vehicle has no weapons, treat this as a Vehicle Explodes! result instead.
31-32	Driver Shaken - The vehicle may not make turns in its next Movement Phase.
33	Driver Stunned - The vehicle may not turn or move in its next turn. If the vehicle is a Zooming Flyer, it must move 18" straight ahead in its next Movement Phase, and it may not move Flat Out in its next Shooting Phase.
34	Engine Damaged - The vehicle may not move Flat Out for the remainder of the game. If it cannot move Flat Out (either through damage or special rules), treat this as a Vehicle Immobilized result instead.
35	Vehicle Immobilized - If the vehicle is a Chariot, count this result as a Crew Stunned result instead. If the vehicle is a Zooming Flyer, roll a D6. On a 1-2, it will immediately Crash and Burn!, on a 3+ the vehicle counts this as a Crew Stunned result instead. If the vehicle is neither a Chariot or a Zooming Flyer, it may not move or turn for the remainder of the game.
36	Driver Slain - The vehicle may not move or turn for the remainder of the game. If the vehicle is a Zooming Flyer, it will immediately Crash and Burn! This damage result cannot be reversed by special rules that remove Vehicle Immobilized effects.
41-42	Armor Damaged - Reduce the Armor Value of the facing used for the Armor Penetration roll on vehicle by 1 for the remainder of the game. If the vehicle's Armor Value on any facing is reduced to 0, the vehicle is destroyed.
43	Vehicle Pierced - Reduce the Armor Value of the facing used for Armor Penetration roll on the vehicle by 1 for the remainder of the game. Do the same for the facing opposite that one rolled for. If the vehicle's Armor Value on any facing is reduced to 0, the vehicle is destroyed.
44	Armor Smashed - Reduce the Armor Value of the facing used for the Armor Penetration toll on the vehicle by 2 for the remainder of the game. If the vehicle's Armor Value on any facing is reduced to 0, the vehicle is destroyed.
45	Structural Integrity Compromised - The vehicle loses a Hull Point.
46	Vehicle Explodes! - The vehicle is destroyed. If the vehicle is a Zooming Flyer, it will immediately Crash and Burn! Otherwise, nearby units suffer a Strength 4 AP- hit for each model within D6" of the vehicle (resolve this once, regardless of how many times the result is inflicted). The vehicle is then removed from the battlefield.
51	Passengers Shaken - Passengers aboard the vehicle may only fire snap shots in their next turn. If the vehicle has no passengers, treat this as a Crew Shaken result instead.
52	Passengers Stunned - Passengers aboard the vehicle may not fire, use special rules, or disembark in their next turn. If the vehicle has no passengers, treat this as a Crew Stunned result instead.
53	Passengers Flee! - Passengers aboard the vehicle must immediately perform an emergency disembarkation, and every model immediately takes a Dangerous Terrain test. If the vehicle has no passengers, treat this as a Crew Stunned result instead.
54	Passenger Compartment Breached - D3 Wounds are randomly distributed among the passengers, with no saving throws of any kind (including Feel No Pain) allowed. If the vehicle has no passengers, treat this as a Crew Stunned result instead.
55	Passengers Slain - All passengers aboard the vehicle are immediately removed as casualties with no saving throws of any kind (including Feel No Pain) allowed. If the vehicle has no passengers, treat this as a Passenger Compartment Destroyed result instead. If the vehicle has no transport capacity, treat it as a Crew Slain result instead.
56	Passenger Compartment Destroyed - All passengers aboard the vehicle are immediately removed as casualties with no saving throws of any kind (including Feel No Pain) allowed. Additionally, the vehicle loses all transport capacity for the remainder of the game. If the vehicle has no transport capacity, treat it as a Crew Slain result instead.
61-62	Critical Hit - Re-roll the Vehicle Damage result, adding 1 to the 1s digit.
63	Severe Damage - Roll twice on the Vehicle Damage table. If this result is rolled again, treat it as a Critical Hit result instead.
64	Crippling Damage - Roll twice on the Vehicle Damage table, adding 1 to the 1s digit. If this result is rolled again, treat it as a Severe Damage result instead.
65	Catastrophic Damage - The vehicle loses D6 Hull Points.
66	Vehicle Annihilated - The vehicle is destroyed. In addition, all passengers aboard are immediately removed as casualties with no saving throws of any kind (including Feel No Pain) allowed. In addition, all models within D6" of the vehicle immediately suffers a wound, although saving throws are permitted. Vehicles within this range take a single Strength 6 AP- hit. The vehicle model is then removed and should be replaced with an area of difficult ground representing scattered wreckage or a crater.

-1 to the 1s digit if the weapon was AP-
+1 to the 1s digit if the weapon was AP2
+2 to the 1s digit if the weapon was AP1
-1 to the 10s digit if the weapon was S5 or less
+1 to the 10s digit if the weapon was S10
-1 to the 10s digit if the roll is for a Glancing Hit
-1 to the 1s digit if the vehicle is a Heavy Vehicle

No die result in either digit may be below 1 or above 6.

Vehicle Types:
- Open-Topped Vehicles: Weapons with the Template or Blast special rule re-roll failed Armor Penetration rolls against Open-Topped Vehicles.

- Heavy Vehicles: Heavy Vehicles can never move faster than Combat Speed and may never move Flat Out. For the purposes of determining which weapons a Heavy Vehicle can fire (and at what Ballistic Skill), Heavy Vehicles are always treated as having remained stationary. Heavy Vehicles are unaffected by the Ordnance shooting restrictions when firing weapons.

- Flyers: All Flyer weapons have the Skyfire USR, and may only fire snap shots at ground targets if they do not also have the Strafing Run USR.

- Tanks: Tanks may only turn once in the Movement Phase, either before their move or after.

So, thoughts?

[chemicalnova]

I do like the expanded damage chart idea. Although it may slow things down a bit, I can see it being played in friendly games here at my table. I will give it a go next week and see how it goes. Although I only have Russ variants, my opponent runs vanilla marines so we will see how it affects these.

[RedCuffs]

I like it. Yes, it may slow the game down a little but it would also add a little more tension (in a good way).

I would like to see a result (called something like "Crew Bale Out") where the vehicle is wrecked or unusable but the crew survive.
Or even if it's just Immobilised but is in a remote part of the board and can have no impact on the game.
Or if they've run out of ammo like in a Deathstrike or Manticore.

The crew bale out with just their pistols (maybe even one with the pintle mounted stubber), become troops and then do what they can to make an impact on the game.
I think it should be that as part of the "Bale Out Drill" they disable the vehicle so it cannot be used by the enemy or friendly forces as per SOP's with any army.
(but also to stop any cheesy jumping in and out of vehicle, doing something that only troops can do, then jumping back into the safety of their tank).

Is it written anywhere how many crew a Leman Russ, Hellhound, Baneblade have?
Does anyone know?

[Julian Sharps]

As cool as a bail out mechanic may be, I have a feeling that it would be too much of a hassle for not enough benefit to FAQ every single vehicle in the game to have a crew capacity stat, and I'm also trying to stay as close to the core ruleset as I can while still make tank battles more involved (and also make turrets and swivel mounts relevant). The assumption is that even if there are survivors, they're too busy putting out fires and keeping their heads down to fight the enemy (also, their tank got a hole put through the crew compartment. An experience like that wold unnerve anyone).

Even in the Third Edition Armored Company list (in which they made it possible, although unlikely, for small arms like lasguns to inflict glancing hits on tanks on the basis that because there are more tanks, the chance of small arms breaking something on one of them goes up), they didn't have rules for dismounting tankers.

I mostly wanted something more interesting than a linear progression from trivial damage to explosions, and to have vehicles that behave a little more like real vehicles instead of being able to pivot on the spot as much as they like without regard to turn radius.

[RedCuffs]

Yeah, maybe I went on about the Bale tying Out for a bit to long.
I still think your damage result table would add a lot of fun to the game.
Still interested in the official crew compliment of any of t he40k vehicles though.

[commissarbob]

Leman Russ tanks have 4 crew; Commander, gunner, driver, loader. If it has sponsons, 2 additional gunners join the crew.

Tank destroyers and Thunderers have 3 crew; Commander, gunner, driver.

Chimera transports, Hellhound and variants have 3 crew; Commander, gunner, driver.

Centaur artillery tractor/light transport has 2 crew; Driver, gunner.

Salamander recon and command tank have 4 crew; Commander, gunner, driver, communications officer.

Earthshakers and other artillery typically have 5 crew; Commander, gunner, driver, 2 loaders.

Baneblade and variants have 9 crew; Commander*, 3 gunners, 3 loaders, communications officer, Enginseer**.
* Commander may be a Lt, commanding officer, or Commissar.
**Enginseer may be a lowly tech adept to a full tech priest depending on age and importance of the particular Baneblade.

In more ancient versions of the game, vehicles were often equipped with crew escape mechanisms (crew bailing out takes a dangerous terrain test and surviving crew deploy within 6" of the cripled vehicle). The crew were most often equipped with the folding stock pattern lasguns in addition to their side arm laspistols. Some named commanders even had plasma pistols.

These numbers and miscellaneous information were gleaned from the Imperial Armor book from Forge World.

[Julian Sharps]

GW is really bad at figuring out crew complements for tanks. Forge World is better at it, but even then, they're inconsistent. So, let's do the thing that almost always results in madness and things exploding, and apply logic and real-world facts to the world of Warhammer 40K.

In real world tanks, you have a core five positions: Commander, Communicator, Driver, Gunner, and Loader. Sometimes (in fact, often), these roles need to be combined (Commander/Communicator, Communicator/Driver, Gunner/Loader, Commander/Gunner are common).

An Infantry Fighting Vehicle, like a Chimera, typically has a crew of three: Commander/Gunner/Loader, Driver/Communicator, and Gunner/Loader (for the hull mount). Since an IFV is typically equipped with anti-infantry weapons that automatically reload from a magazine, a dedicated Loader position is not necessary.

Now, because there's no more room in a Chimera hull for a fourth crewman to reduce the workload, this means that all Chimera-based vehicles (with the exception of self-propelled artillery) must have the same crew capacity. This simplifies things for us (therefore, Hellhounds have a crew of three).

Chimera-based self-propelled artillery (like the Basilisk) also typically have a core crew of three (Commander/Communicator, Driver, Gunner/Loader). However, the requirements of their gun add crew. The Hydra and Wyvern have an additional Gunner/Loader in the back turret. Deathstrikes and Manticores based on GW's plastic kit require no additional crew, although the Forge World Manticore does have a turret that holds a Gunner/Loader. Anything that resembles a Basilisk is going to have a Gunner and a Loader for the BFG that's been bolted to the back, for a total crew of five.

The Leman Russ is a bit easier, given that it's basically a WW2-era French MBT with Imperial Eagles plastered all over it, but we'll apply the same logic to it as we have for the Chimera family. Because the Russ doesn't need to accommodate passengers ever, it can afford to have a larger crew. In this case, Commander, Communicator, Gunner, Loader, Driver, and Gunner/Loader (for the hull mount). If the Russ has sponsons, add a couple more Gunner/Loaders for a total crew of eight. Yes, it's going to be cramped, hot, and sweaty in there, but if you wanted cozy crew accommodations then damn it, you should've joined the Navy!

Incidentally, even those Russes that don't use projectile guns (like the Annihilator and Executioner), still need a dedicated Loader to keep an eye on their temperamental main gun and its power supply.

Now the Baneblade: this is going to be a doozy, since the only real-world tank that's anything like it is the Maus, which is more of a mobile barricade than a main battle tank. Since it's bigger than the Russ, we can safely assume that it will have at least the same crew requirements. So, for the turret, we have a Commander, a Gunner for the co-axial Autocannon, and a Gunner and two Loaders for the Baneblade Cannon. For the rest of the crew in the hull, we of course have the Driver, the Communicator, a Gunner/Loader for the Heavy Bolter swivel mount, and a Gunner and a Loader for the hull-mounted Demolisher Cannon. Furthermore, we have a Gunner/Loader for all four sponson guns, and a new crew position, the Engineer, for a grand total of 15 crew for a Baneblade. I'm not going to go into the Baneblade variants as there are probably more of them than there are Russ variants, and I don't particularly care that much for super-heavies in the first place.

Space Marine vehicles, being more technologically advanced than those of the Imperial Guard, probably have a crew of no more than three: One for Rhinos, Two for Razorbacks, Land Speeders, Whirlwinds, Vindicators (since Space Marines probably use auto-loaders for their Demolisher Cannons), Predators without sponsons, and whatever the hell they call their anti-aircraft tanks, and three for Predators with sponsons and all Land Raider variants.

With aliens, this gets a lot murkier. Necrons seem to require a crew of no more than three, and typically only one or less. Considering that they themselves are machines, I am frankly surprised that they require crew at all.

Orks probably don't have fixed crew complements, but we can safely assume that there's the Boss, a driver, a gunner for every light weapon (Big Shootas, Rokkit Launchas, things like that), and a gunner and a loader for every big gun. Skullhammas might have a Mek whacking things with a hammer.

Eldar Vypers clearly have a crew of two, a driver and a gunner. Eldar tanks may only have a crew of one or two, since they don't seem to need Loaders, Communicators, or much on the way of Gunners.

Dark Eldar vehicles all have clearly-defined crew complements (Driver and one Gunner for every weapon mounted on the deck).

Tau vehicles may at most have a crew of two, and that's assuming that the entire thing isn't driven by an advanced drone system to begin with. All I know for certain is that there's a space in the back for the Commander to stick his head out, and even that's not necessary to show. Tau combat vehicles (with the exception of the Piranha, which clearly has a Driver and a Gunner) might be entirely unmanned (except for Commander Longstrike's Hammerhead, but that might just be an older or custom model that requires a pilot).

[treadheadz]

I really like the damage chart - reminds me of the old 2nd edition datacards.

However in a "normal" 40k game, I think there would be too much book keeping to make it time-effective.

But as a stand-alone game type - It would be interesting, just needs a few missions and you've got a more detailed and tactical all-tank-battle type game mode, much like the Spearhead expansion a few years back.

Both me and a fellow gamer is avid treadheads and this coud be a cool setting for a massive tank battle.

Keep up the good work!!

[RedCuffs]

That's a lot of good gen you guys have put up to answer my question.
Thanks.
I may knock up a small "baled out" crew for a mini project.

[cheminhaler]

While I like extra charts and the whole idea of your makeover, Sharps, I feel the chart is too anti-MEQ.

There are literally tons of ways to lose ten space marines or necrons, with no armour saves and no special 'living metal' saves for the 'crons. Even worse; a glancing hit from a bolter can equally kill, say, all ten Orks in a trukk if they roll a high roll on the damage chart.
There are plenty of ways of representing hits among passengers without just the mechanic of 'remove all ten infantry regardless of what they are'. For instance you could allocate 2d6 Strength 5 hits at AP5 (note : same strength as heavy bolter shot). That might be fairer to the more expensive infantry types (marines, necron warriors, sisters of battle or guard stormtroopers) and at the same time allow characters in vehicles to get away with just losing a wound rather than being removed entirely.

You want to encourage the rhino rush; not discourage it

Edit; Won't someone think of the poor necrons! *cries hysterically*