# skimmers nerf on 5th edition?



## Nightbringer416 (Feb 16, 2008)

I dont really know anything except rumors of nerfing the skimmers on 5th edition. if any one knows anything about it, it would be much appreciated on my part at least.


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## Galahad (Dec 21, 2006)

I'm going to move this to News & Rumors...they're where you go to ask questions about rumored rules changes. Rules Discussion is really more for discussing rules that are current.


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## DarthIbis (Aug 20, 2007)

Nightbringer416 said:


> I dont really know anything except rumors of nerfing the skimmers on 5th edition. if any one knows anything about it, it would be much appreciated on my part at least.


The rumored nerf is that GW is tweaking the "Skimmers Moving Fast" (SMF) rule so that they will be a bit easier to take down and/or reduce their effectiveness with their big guns while moving fast.

Many of the rumors are discussed in this thread:
http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=4099

BTW, Used to live in O-town. I know SciFi City well. (Back from when it was over by the Navy base. :biggrin


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

The rumour is that the skimmers moving fast rule is being changed to give a 5+ cover save (ignore the hit on a 5+) rather than downgrading all hits to glancing. It will be possible to get penetrating hits on skimmers.

However, I can show that this doesn't make skimmers statistically more vulnerable. The vehicle damage table is also being changed. Imagine the current table but with -1 on all the dice rolls. Table looks like this:

1: shaken
2: stunned
3: weapon destroyed
4: immobilised
5: destroyed
6: explodes

There is only one table with various modifiers depending on what kind of hit you got. You get +1 if you used an AP1 wep tho these do now glance if they equal your armour value and you get -1 with an AP- wep, tho these can now penetrate. Glancing hits get -2 on the table, so note that it will be impossible to destroy a vehicle on a glance.

Another improvement is that entanglement is getting removed. If your transport is killed the troops inside will only have to take a pinning test. Troops in an exploded or wrecked vehicle will take a S4 hit rather than being wounded on a 4+, which is an obvious problem for eldar and tau. on the other hand, open topped vehicles only hit their passengers at S3, which is nice for orks. There's no reroll to wound if the transport went fast, which is nice for everyone.

There is a heavy nerf to falcons in that defensive weapons will only be weps of S4 or less. No more firing the scatter laser, pulse laser and shuriken cannon after moving 12". Another issue is that fast vehicles can only go 18", not 24".

*The net result is that skimmers will be tougher than they are now*. 

At the moment a glancing hit has a 1/3 chance of destroying or immobilising a skimmer tank. In 5th it will be a 1/2 chance, but with a 1/3 chance of ignoring the hit altogether. Result is exactly the same overall chance of a wrecked result on a 5th ed penetrate as on a 4h ed glancing hit.

Of course, glancing hits will still exist. Nowadays people often use things weapons of S6 or 7 to target skimmers because a glance is as good as a pen. Not so in 5th. A glancing hit will only have a 1/6 chance of immobilising a skimmer, with a 1/3 chance of ignoring that with the 5+ save for moving fast. Shooting stuff like multi lasers, autocannons, scatter lasers and so on at A12 or 13 skimmers will no longer be very effective at all. On the other hand there will be an increased risk from AP 1 stuff; exorcists, meltas and railguns. That seems to make sense to me. People will use anti tank weapons against your tanks and anti personnel weps against infantry, not scatter lasers against everything.

Add to that you have a 1/3 chance to ignore other glancing hits as well. Maybe you don't get that shaken or weapon destroyed result, so you can still fire next turn. That has to be a huge improvement.

Finally the 5+ save is no longer the best that you can get. If your skimmer is partially concealed behind a piece of solid cover the save can improve to 4+ or even 3+ for fortifications. There is now a reason to use cover for skimmers, where currently you may as well just burn right down the middle of the field.

Falcons truly are getting nerfed hard, mostly due to the defensive weapon rule. They will still be damn near impossible to kill. Hammerheads, wave serpents and devilfish will all be better than they are at the moment. The fact that none will claim objectives does cause some problems though.

So overall you get to be tougher but with the slight chance that you can actually blow up a skimmer completely. That seems like a more realistic set of damage outcomes than currently exist, but harms nobody. I expect that a lot of eldar players will switch to using wave serpents. You can probably mail order the sprue to change your tanks over.


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## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

Greta breakdown SG. I hate teh change to defensive weapons and maybe they will change it back (not likely). Just means less people will be running Shurricannons. It would be nice if they made the turret co-axil so it would count as a single weapon system. LOL.

I honestly like the change to the Fast rules in some ways. Basically eveything that is fast gets and extra 6 inches added to their moment when figuring what they can do. At 6 a nomral tank can only fire one weapon, a fast vehicle at 6 inches can fire everything, at 12 it only fires one and at 18 it doesn't fire at all. But they do not get a bonus for forcemarching like tracked vehicles do.


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

The stats on eldar skimmers are a bit more complex and holo field tanks will be more vulnerable than they are now.

You go from a 1/9 chance to be destroyed to a 1/6 (1/4 but with a 5+ save). With vectored engines you go from 1/36 to 2/27, which is nearly three times as likely to get destroyed. A penetrate from an AP1 wep can destroy a fully kitted out falcon on every sixth penetrating hit, which is exactly six times as likely as it is now. 

That's only on penetrating hits though. Glancing hits can only immobilise on a 6 and all are ignored on a 5+, which can allow a shot on your next turn. Overall, skimmers are more vulnerable to high strength weapons and less so to low strength. It takes 27 lascannon hits on average to kill a falcon, which is still 50% more than the 18 needed to kill a land raider. With the emphasis given to troops in 5th it's unlikely that you will see 27 lascannons on the battlefield, so falcons are going to be at least as tough overall as they are now.

Fire prisms and hammerheads are nastier in 5th. They have a 1/3 chance to ignore a shot that would now prevent them from firing.

Of course, non-skimmer tanks benefit a lot from the same changes as well. I'm seriously considering using a daemonically posessed land raider in my new chaos army, since it will be genuinely difficult to stop for almost everyone. People without at least strength 9 shots are unable to kill it at all and a lascannon hit will only destroy it one time in 18. Railguns will still wreck it one shot in 6, but that's better than 1/4 now. I like the look of ramming stuff a lot and a (slightly mad) friend of mine is looking at a 1500 point ork army with 5 or 6 battlewagons in it which would basically ram and tank shock the enemy off the board. Land raiders and battlewagons both look like extremely effective ways of delivering assault troops in 5th.


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## Desolatemm (Feb 2, 2008)

Speaking of 5th "cover" save for vehicles, I heard that there will no longer be Area terrain. Anything in direct LoS is targetable, but they still get the saves. Anyone else hear about this?


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## Marneus Calgar (Dec 5, 2007)

Desolatemm said:


> Speaking of 5th "cover" save for vehicles, I heard that there will no longer be Area terrain. Anything in direct LoS is targetable, but they still get the saves. Anyone else hear about this?


All i've heard about LoS is that you cant see past friendly or foe models, monstrous creatures can always be targeted even if behind over models. I think the last point is the same for tanks...


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## moc065 (Oct 31, 2007)

Its all rumour at this point, and some of those rumours have been Playtested (by me and others) and the general concenscous so far is that although Skimmers will have to be used slightly differently, all in all they do not get totally nerfed, in fact in some cases they do better than before.

CaHG


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

The area terrain rules have changed quite a bit, and cause a little bit of argument in their interpretation relating to vehicles.

You get the save if you are in the terrain as normal. However, area terrain doesn't block LOS *by default* any more. It may still block LOS when you take the model's eye view, for instance if you have infantry on either side of a ruin trying to shoot at each other.

If you can see an enemy through some area terrain then they get the save even if they are not in any form of cover.

It's more complicated for vehicles though. Vehicles don't get a save just for being in area terrain, they need to be at least 50% hidden by it. A tank sitting in a wood very likely isn't going to get a save, though one in some ruins might get one if there is a wall or something protecting part of it.

Note that it's possible for ground tanks to get 4+ or even 3+ cover saves thanks to this. Unlike the current concealed effect converting penetrating hits into glances, this save will negate hits altogether.

Disclaimer: That's my interpretation of the pdf rules, but it may not be what everyone else thinks.


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## Engelus (Jul 26, 2007)

if thats true about area terrain, its almost unplayable

where I play we define forrests with a ring of trees, so if you're not behind one of the 4 trees then you're not blocked at all?


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## LordWaffles (Jan 15, 2008)

So for a tau skimmer, anyone know the mathhammer on killing one now with a lascannon?
(Counting the nigh-mandatory upgrade to reroll 'immobilised')


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