Greetings all,

So I did a search on these forums for motive systems, and vehicle armour to try and find an answer to this question and was unable to find any mention of it. Sorry if I missed something.

Anyway.

I'm curious to know the rules/interpretations out there for how people handle hits to vehicle motive systems.

At one point in the Core Rulebook (p 275, Table 8-24: Vehicle Hit Locations) Motive systems are described as "... often quite fragile, regardless of the type of vehicle..."

Does regular "armour facing" protect the motive systems?

I might argue that it doesn't, in the case of say, a called shot against the front tire of an ork buggy. I'm not sure what kind of armour most wheeled vehicles use, but I doubt it is as thick on the wheels.

I could understand the argument that maybe a Sentinel's legs would possibly use the appropriate facing, or maybe always the 'back' facing as if they had been attacked from the top or bottom (also p275 CRB). Or even a tracked vehicle taking a motive shot from the side being protected, but less so from the front or back?

How do people handle this? In a game I was running a player nailed an Ork buggy in the front wheel with a maximal plasma gun shot as above, and I ruled it went straight to structural integrity and critical, and resulted in the vehicle flipping over its front end or something like that, which was awesome, but I may have been giving a bit more damage than was appropriate.

Curious how OW vet GMs handle these types of situations.

Thanks in advance.

I want to admit up front that neither OW nor vehicle combat are my strong suits. Pretty much anything I say will be just my personal feelings rather than statements backed up by rules. That being said:

While ignoring Facing to deal direct damage to motive systems feels empowering to players, it devalues the inveritable damage sponges that vehicles are supposed to be. Yes, it would make sense that a tank's treads or a walker's legs wouldn't be nearly as armoured as other parts of the vehicle. However, I feel doing so creates some weird incentives, like making combat devolve into "how quickly can I destroy this schmuck's motive system and then his face?" A motionless vehicle is much less of a threat, after all. I would say simply 'ignoring' Armour Facing is too much, but I can agree that motive systems should be a little more vulnerable than the rest of the vehicle. Mainly, I want to preserve the dramatic tension that an enemy vehicle brings. Limiting a target's mobility is important, but it shouldn't be dramatically easier than fighting the target "normally".

The only way to deal with it is to create housrules. Otherwise the vehicle combat is a mess, from over-the-top invulnerability against long-range infantry weapons, to vehicle weapon stats.

Made this thread about a month ago:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/123460-vehicle-armor-ratings-and-motive-systems/

Unfortunately only one other discussed it with me, and the conclusion was not satisfactory. Practically speaking only Righteous Fury can do much to motive systems, and small arms are simply useless even against wheeled vehicles.

As a house rule I considered halving armor for motive systems, but since crits here can destroy vehicle it would be unbalanced.

Might just wing it if it's fitting your story, but be careful about making a general rule without thinking it through.

I think I will do it like this: Righteous Fury results on motive systems, even if they would not normally penetrate, can at the GMs discretion reduce mobility of the vehicle or even spectacular results like forcing a crash test. This means you can focus fire on vehicle tires and possibly get it out of control, but you can't destroy it easily that way. Fury is potentially hard to get, but remember a Heavy Stubber firing at a vehicle (+20 or +30 size bonus) at short range... it's not hard to get 8 hits, which is 80% chance of a RF. Not if thats a Heavy Bolter even a Leeman Russ could be in trouble . which is where GM discretion comes into play. Damaged belt? Maybe -10 to Pilot checks. No suddenly bolting forwards and landing on it's turret.

Thanks for the replies,

I think I will do it like this: Righteous Fury results on motive systems, even if they would not normally penetrate, can at the GMs discretion reduce mobility of the vehicle or even spectacular results like forcing a crash test. This means you can focus fire on vehicle tires and possibly get it out of control, but you can't destroy it easily that way. Fury is potentially hard to get, but remember a Heavy Stubber firing at a vehicle (+20 or +30 size bonus) at short range... it's not hard to get 8 hits, which is 80% chance of a RF. Not if thats a Heavy Bolter even a Leeman Russ could be in trouble . which is where GM discretion comes into play. Damaged belt? Maybe -10 to Pilot checks. No suddenly bolting forwards and landing on it's turret.

This sounds like a good solution.

In the future the KISS solution would probably be to just use the facing armour value and not overthink it, however, there will undoubtedly be times when the PCs want to take out a vehicle tire in order to immobilize it (like in your previous post Friend of the Dork). In which case some kind of compromise will be in order.

I think my problem was letting the party get a little to OP with all their deadeye and sharpshooter talents (also didn't help that I was also giving them the standard attack and aim benefits, whoops).

We've had fun with it though, we were all brand new to the system, and I'm pretty noobish to GMing in general.