Was reading through the rules for shooting/attacking vehicles in Rites of Battle, and came across a quirk, assuming I'm reading this right that is...

If I attack a vehicle, I usually need to get enough damage (before or after armour/armour penetration etc) to bypass it's Integrity, kinda like wounding characters. Cool, easy enough to understand.

But it I roll Righteous Fury on -any- attack on a vehicle, it's an automatic Critical Chart roll of unmodified 1d5?

There doesn't seem to be anything requiring the attack to do any damage first. Is that correct? Does this mean I can throw a rock at a Land Raider, get a Righteous Fury off it, even though the damage from the rock itself can't even penetrate the Armour Value, and get a critical result of 1-5?

On the other foot, with 50 armour value all around, even a Krak Missile or Multi-Melta at short range seems to need righteous fury just to do anything bar lick the paint.

EDIT: Buh, recently shown that I didn't read it properly, still need to have done damage after Armour. But this still makes Krak Missiles incapable of doing any damage to it, post-errata. Even short range Multi-Melta has difficulty doing damage versus Land Raider.

Exactly. That is the problem with the rules. Want some house rules to fix vehicle combat? There you go (assuming errata 1.1 weapon stats):

Adjust AP to make light vehicles tougher and heavy vehicles slightly more vulnerable:

Adjusted AP = ((Vehicle AP - 30) x 0.75) + 30

Example values:
Rhino Front: stays 31
Rhino Rear: 22
Land Raider All-Around: 45
Land Speeder: 21

Doesn't help by itself but if you also change RF (at least for vehicles though I do it globally) to multiple exploding dice (ie every rolled 10 on damage adds to damage if confirmed), high armour becomes punchable.

You will still need to make a few general weapon modifications:

- Melta does +1d10 and halves AP at Short Range (in fact everything that rolls 2d6 vs AV in the TT should half AP)

- Krak Missiles get +1d10 damage

- Assault Cannons get their special rules removed and get Pen 7 and double Pen when RF is scored (simulating Rending)

With those few changes, vehicle combat starts to resemble 40K.

Alex

A quick fix could be to use the righteous fury-rules from OW, where you deal 1 wound of damage, if you score a righteous fury, but wouldn't deal any damage.

OW Core p. 250:
- Alternatively, if the attack does not do any Damage once
reduced by Armour and Toughness Bonus, then the attack Deals
1 point of Damage, not reduced by Armour or Toughness. This is
the extent of the Righteous Fury effect for this attack; the victim
does not suffer a roll on a Critical Hit Table. This represents some
weapons simply not being potent enough to deal major Damage,
but still able to do harm through a “lucky hit.”

Vehicle rules are not yet fleshed out appropriately. For an RPG to consider an entity nothing more than a single big box with an overarching toughness when in reality there are many different things to consider such as weekpoints and vulnerable areas (for instance weapon sponsons on the land raider deffinately are not as strongly armoured as the main hull).

Therefore GMs should take some liberty in interpreting damage in a common sense manner. An aimed shot to a weapon sponson should have to deal with much less armor and SI than the main hull (though a turret mounted weapon would still have the full armour of the turret to contend with), and obviously only damage said weapon. Aiming at a tank's tracks are also a good idea, they should also be much weaker on the armor front, and since they are generally held in place by small(ish) pins shouldn't have much SI, although since there are thousands of pins and hundreds of track links on a tank there should never be a time when a player is hitting the same track as his last attack (it should be an all or nothing thing).

Ideas to remember with vehicles:
M-kill - Mobility kill, the vehicle can no longer move, it can easily be left to rot in the field, maneuvered around to better positions, and obviously limited traverse weapons are stuck with crappy fire arcs.

F-kill - Functional kill, the vehicle is no longer able to perform its primary function. An F-kill can also be an M-kill if the primary function is transport. Taking out weapons on a tank can be considered an F-kill as the tank can no longer attack enemies.

K-kill - Catastrophic kill: Boom, the vehicle no longer exists.

You don't have to blow up (or K-kill) a vehicle or military target to render it ineffective. Usually M-kills or F-kills are all is needed. A Surface to Air Missile site, for instance, does not require every missile launcher to be blown up, just the (usually) single missile guidance radar.

All that being said, please move further discussion to the house rules forum unless you have specific questions concerning rules.

A land raider opponent should be in the same category as greater demon. Its eminently damageable if the group is prepared. A short ranged multimelta is 2d10 +16 pen 24 so before dice rolls, you're already at 40 of the 50. 2d10 (+2 if you have the talent) means you should be hitting for 3-10 on a regular basis.

Chain fist with a 70 strenght would be 2d10+23 pen 10 with tearing. Not as good, but still doable.

And then the librarian can just use one 1k psionic power and shut it down entirely....

You don't get many chances to do your 3-10 points. Really. Once the LR starts to fire back from Short Range, you're in real trouble. Use the house rules proposed above.

Alex

Most of the time a vehicle is both an unaware and helpless target in melee, what with the fact it can't fight back (walkers, open topped, and bikes are another story for obvious reasons).

That being said, Melee against a vehicle should never be, "I go up and punch its 12 foot of steel equivalent armor". Even with a power fist, you're not going to accomplish much. You need to be attacking specific parts of the tank, tearing off panels, cutting barrels, and trying to force your way into the tank to kill the juicy center. These attempts usually require strength tests (prying panels) and damage rolls against weaker parts on a tank (vision periscopes, exposed conduits, crew hatches, etc.).

Most of the time a vehicle is both an unaware and helpless target in melee, what with the fact it can't fight back (walkers, open topped, and bikes are another story for obvious reasons).

That being said, Melee against a vehicle should never be, "I go up and punch its 12 foot of steel equivalent armor". Even with a power fist, you're not going to accomplish much. You need to be attacking specific parts of the tank, tearing off panels, cutting barrels, and trying to force your way into the tank to kill the juicy center. These attempts usually require strength tests (prying panels) and damage rolls against weaker parts on a tank (vision periscopes, exposed conduits, crew hatches, etc.).

Rules that were considered in the 2ed table top and completely left out of the rpg. In 2ed you got a bonus using krak grenades in melee against tanks vs just throwing them from a distance

Also missing is haywire rules on vehicles.

Rules that were considered in the 2ed table top and completely left out of the rpg. In 2ed you got a bonus using krak grenades in melee against tanks vs just throwing them from a distance

Also missing is haywire rules on vehicles.

In 3rd edition this was abstracted as "always hitting rear armor in melee." This of course, got a little wonky with tanks like the Land Raider, I don't care how tough your primary armor is, there is always some areas at least a little weaker, even if those areas don't actually allow penetrations into the main body (tank treads, weapon sponsons, periscopes, etc.)

This RPG did not have vehicle rules until Rites of Battle, and while they have improved them a little more in Only War, the vehicle rules still need some work.