Hello

I'm running a campaign for a mech inf regiment. One thing that came up during vehicular combat is shooting at tracks, wheels etc - there is no listed Armor values for them! Am I supposed to just use the front, side or rear armor, depending on where shot from? That would make no sense.

For example, in Final Testament at one point PC will be driving trucks with wheels. The enemy is said to attempt to shoot out the tires possibly forcing a stop - but the rules does not support this at all. Called shots are possible, but if given full armor rating it is almost impossible to get a critical on motive systems when using small arms or even light heavy weapons (including heavy bolter and dakkaguns).

Is there a rule I missed somewhere? If not, what would be a appropriate armor value for ork trukk wheels contra Chimera tracks?

I am thinking maybe half rear armor for wheeled vehicles and just rear armor for tracked vehicles:

This gives the Leman Russ 20 armor for it's tracks, making it impossible to damage them without at least a Heavy Bolter or the equivalent, and even then multiple Furies are needed to immobilize it. The Chimera is slightly easier, but still unlikely to stop unless hit multiple times.

The ork trukk would just have 10 armor for the wheels, which means even a lucky lasgun shot could impair it, although it's more likely it would take quite concentrated fire to stop it.

Would that be balanced enough?

Armour facing is determined by which side of the vehicle you're shooting at, rules as written. The problem with giving wheels reduced armour is that it will rapidly deplete the vehicle's structural integrity, meaning that they could plink the wheels to death and kill the vehicle purely by small arms fire at the tyres - even if it isn't actually moving. Makes sense for immobilisation, but not so much the ensuing ball of flames by the next stray shot that hits the vehicle at -10 SI due to wheel plinking.

If you want to stop the vehicle with motive shots, either house rule something in that the motives have a separate SI pool, or have them bring bigger guns to the battle.

Alternatively, allow me to suggest something radically beyond the scope of many a DM's thoughts. Have you considered purely cinematic effect? When all else fails, you are the DM and if the group doesn't appreciate a little dramatic fudging, then you may possibly be playing with the wrong group. Naturally, it's down to your discretion what you do at the end of the day.

Armour facing is determined by which side of the vehicle you're shooting at, rules as written. The problem with giving wheels reduced armour is that it will rapidly deplete the vehicle's structural integrity, meaning that they could plink the wheels to death and kill the vehicle purely by small arms fire at the tyres - even if it isn't actually moving. Makes sense for immobilisation, but not so much the ensuing ball of flames by the next stray shot that hits the vehicle at -10 SI due to wheel plinking.

If you want to stop the vehicle with motive shots, either house rule something in that the motives have a separate SI pool, or have them bring bigger guns to the battle.

Alternatively, allow me to suggest something radically beyond the scope of many a DM's thoughts. Have you considered purely cinematic effect? When all else fails, you are the DM and if the group doesn't appreciate a little dramatic fudging, then you may possibly be playing with the wrong group. Naturally, it's down to your discretion what you do at the end of the day.

That's a good point about the SI. I was thinking they could always call shot another side anyway, but if the enemy are coming right at you it's impossible to get a rear shot without somehow teleporting behind him (or using jump-packs).

So yeah it would make more sense to have seperate SI, but that makes it very clunky too.

Dramatic fudging is all well and good, but when it becomes a rule the players expect it to work the same way always. So if the enemy can target their wheels and ignore the tougher armor, so can they.

If there was actually less-lethal critical tables for motive systems this could work, but a 10 crit is autokill anyway.

I might just rule that hits on motive systems that would generate RF does so even if the damage is not enough to penetrate. So no SI is lost, but still a chance to mess up them tires on a lucky shot or 10.

If it's Orks, I'm a big proponent about bringing out the Beamy Deffgun (Orky Lascannon) as an all purpose anti-vehicular solution. After all, one doesn't need to abide by the book 100% in terms of story content either. Nothing will have your players shitting themselves and trying to lay down suppression / sniper fire in self-defence like a Lascannon.

It maybe doesn't answer your current dilemma, but it certainly prevents the players feeling unstoppable =P

I guess in the end it depends what you want to do. Stay true to the adventure path as written to the word, or, mix things up to create certain responses in your players. I'm just throwing out a variety of ideas at this point with no direction.