I'm not certain if I'm brain dead and just missing the obvious, but for the life of me I can not find any requisition costs for vehicles. If I'm not mistaken they all have renown ranks listed but no cost otherwise. Could someone point me in the right direction?

Delacross said:

Vehicles don't have requisition values; obtaining vehicles is described in the sidebar "Kill-Teams Acquiring Vehicles" on page 171 of Rites of Battle. Basically, if a Kill-Team asks to use a vehicle on their mission, so long as the Kill-Team's leader has sufficient Renown, and the GM agrees that a vehicle is appropriate for that mission, they can have it.

Thank you! I was beating my head against the wall trying to come up with requisition numbers for each vehicle. I can't believe I missed that entirely.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Which is frankly what I hate about the vehicle section. There are rules for requisitioning every single piece of equipment, including really trivial things (which a GM may or may not ignore - but the option's there), but not for something as important as vehicles.

Brother Nathaniel, we've noticed you've requisitioned 1 data slate and 2 bolt pistol clips over the limit for this mission. This is a severe breach of Codex Astartes, which we'll be reporting to your chapter! Oh, and by the way, we seem to have a Predator Tank lying around... Or maybe a set of assault bikes... Take your choice, it's not as if they're worth anything, right?

I don't think that it's a question of that, so much as vehicles are *too* important to be handled by mere requisition. It should be up to the GM what is appropriate.

Give Requisition costs and players may feel the need to use vehicles inappropriately and to the detriment of the game. For example; taking a Shadowsword tank on a bodyguarding mission in a hive, or something equally ridiculous. Furthermore, the Requisition rules are dependant on the number of objectives; not the type. Consider the following missions objectives:

Kill the norn queen in the middle of the Tyranid mothership.

Go to Antartica and plant a flag at the Pole.

Storm the heretic General's command bunker.

If all of the above were objectives, they would all give the same requisition to the players, yet one of these missions *requires* them to spend a large number of Requisition on a vehicle and the other two would be not appropriate to take vehicles on.

Simply: It would be absurd to simply assign costs to vehicles. It should be down to the GM to deicide what type of vehicles PCs should use on a mission.

Siranui said:

That was my first impression after reading the vehicles section - the vehicles are too important to be governed by requisition rules and should only be provided at GM's discretion . Then again - if you look further into RoB (might be my random reading order ) you'll find exact requisition cost for e.g. Baneblade support and orbital bombardment - which at least in my book are way more important than providing the KT with a Rhino. I agree that having a Land Raider for a mission shouldn't be simply a matter of spending some requisition (but that applies to said orbital bombardment just as well), but is requesting a space marine bike really that different from requesting a (mastercrafted?) jump pack.

Obviously the bottomline is that most GMs may come up with some simple rules for requisitioning the most basic vehicles (I know I will, for the reasons stated above), but it would be useful to have some guidelines provided. I fully understand that you wouldn't ever use those values even if they were provided - just as I will never allow my players to pay requisition for an orbital bombardment (by the way - they used one in Price of Hubris, but that was determined by the mission itself, not requisition rules). Still - having those values provided in the book, just as they're provided for almost all other type of 'resource' available to players wouldn't have any negative impact on your game, right?

PS. I know I'm taking this out of context, but one could seriously disagree with the statement that all of the objectives provided should confer the same amount of requisition. First of all they're of quite different difficulty (at least taken in vacuum - maybe the GM has planned a massive chaos invasion in Antartica?) and second - at least the first one should probably be divided into a few distinct steps (each an objective on its own).

decPL said:

My point was that the Requisition is dependant on the importance and difficulty of the objective; not how far away it is. Imagine the objective 'Go to Antarctica' as opposed to 'Go to the cornershop'. One requires a vehicle, one does not, yet both may have the same Requisition allocated.

Siranui said:

<NitpickMode>

Would you say those two objectives have the same difficulty (which determines the requisition amount)?

</NitpickMode>

Jokes aside, I understand how players misusing vehicles (e.g. by requesting one on a 'got to the cornershop' mission) could spoil the game. Still I would say it's your role as a GM (both out of character and acting as the KT's Watch Captain) to put your foot down for such obvious misuse (and not something that should happen very often given mature players).

I on the other hand have a problem, both as a GM and a player, to e.g. compare the pros and cons of taking a jump pack on a mission vs. taking a space marine bike (which should be at least somewhat comparable) when the first one has defined rules (and the GM should have some valid reason to disallow taking a jump pack) and has some drawback for the player (i.e. requisition that could be spent elsewhere) and the other is just an arbitrary call by the GM.

decPL said:

That was my first impression after reading the vehicles section - the vehicles are too important to be governed by requisition rules and should only be provided at GM's discretion . Then again - if you look further into RoB (might be my random reading order ) you'll find exact requisition cost for e.g. Baneblade support and orbital bombardment - which at least in my book are way more important than providing the KT with a Rhino. I agree that having a Land Raider for a mission shouldn't be simply a matter of spending some requisition (but that applies to said orbital bombardment just as well), but is requesting a space marine bike really that different from requesting a (mastercrafted?) jump pack.

That's a little different.

Consider the Thunderhawk Gunship. In the vehicles section, it gives you full details for what one of those aircraft can do, and the minimum Renown needed to actually request one. In the Imperial Assets section, there is also a Thunderhawk, drawn from the resources of an Astartes ally (because that's what the Astartes section of the Imperial Assets lists represent - other Space Marine Chapters also operating in or near the mission area). The difference, to my mind, is that the former is a Deathwatch Thunderhawk given to the Kill-Team to do with as they require (within reason), and which they may well operate themselves, while the latter is the combat dropship equivalent of asking a friend to drive you somewhere - it's still their vehicle, and they decide how it gets used, so you don't have anywhere near as much control over its actions. The other difference is that an Imperial Asset has to be available to spend requisition on - if there isn't a Space Marine Chapter nearby, you can't borrow one of their Thunderhawks, while requesting a vehicle from the Deathwatch armouries means they'll send one with you when you depart for the mission.

Same with all other vehicle-related Imperial Assets - in all cases, you're employing the services of vehicles already in use by others, while requesting a vehicle from the Deathwatch gives it to the Kill-Team directly.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

No argument here - if those were easily comparable, it would be much easier to determine a requisiton cost on some of the vehicles, because you can request access to one as an asset.

What I'm driving at is something along those lines:

Using the RAW you can imagine the following scenarios (well, you can probably imagine a lot more, but that's not the point ):

A.

GM: You guys have a mission where you'll need to move fast between objectives. Have a rhino/land speeder/predator to move around.

B.

GM: You guys have a mission where the objectives are some distance apart.
Players: Can we have a rhino/land speeder/predator?
GM: Why not, you can have a rhino or a land speeder, there is no reason to use predator here.

C.

GM: You guys have a mission on a space hulk.
Players: Can we have a rhino/land speeder/predator?
GM: WTF?!

Now if there were some requisiton values provided, scenario A and C wouldn't differ one bit. But B might go as follows:

GM: You guys have a mission where the objectives are some distance apart.
Players: Can we have a rhino/land speeder/predator?
GM: Why not, you can requisition a rhino or a land speeder, there is no reason to use predator here.

The difference is that the players won't be able to take as much equipment if they take a vehicle, so there is a tactical choice to be made (they still can acomplish the mission on foot, but they're trading mobility for e.g. firepower).

Using RAW there is no choice on the players' side here - taking the vehicle has no drawbacks and the GM simply has to consider if he's feeling generous (again - I'm considering a mission where using a vehicle is a viable choice, but not mandatory; or perhaps there are several vehicles that could be used, each modifying the team's tactics and each with a distinct price).

decPL said:

Thing is, that most vehicles offer far more than mobility - they offer firepower as well... at which point, you're not actually giving anything up taking the vehicle, because you're getting bigger guns on a mobile, resilient platform... even a basic Astartes Bike is far superior to a Jump Pack (its nearest logical equivalent as a one-man speed boost), given that it provides additional protection (most shots hit the bike, not the rider) and firepower (twin-linked bolter).

Which means that in order to stop vehicles being a no-brainer "why would I requisition these guns, when I could just bring a Razorback or Predator instead", they end up having to be prohibitively expensive, which either makes them inaccessible in all but the biggest of missions, or requires that half the Kill-Team give up the opportunity to take anything other than standard issue gear in order to bring along a vehicle.

I don't see either option as desirable.

Personally, I've not seen vehicles being used that often by my group, and the times they've been used are more because I've offered access to them to the group than because they've requested them (that is, they don't tend to request vehicles, but they might consider it if I offer them access to the Deathwatch motor pool). If they want mobility between objectives, they tend to take Jump Packs (faster/more agile than a bike even for an average Marine, less vulnerable to a single lucky shot than a tank). In my games, that may be partly because I generally require that they crew any vehicles they bring themselves, which disrupts and divides their operation as a squad.

I'm thinking vehicle's should simply be used as support for a mission... Even among the death watch vehicles are precious commodities and not to be thrown in lightly. If a DW mission would suggest the use of a vehicle then by all means it should be provided. However!!! You can use vehicles as an easyier option for KT's. Basicly if you have large distances to travel a rhino should be thrown into the mission, however if the KT wants to take a pimped out razorback, their XP should be penalized. Thinking logically, you gonna get more actual experience fighting tooth and nail with a rhino as basicly cover, or with a pimped out razor back doing all the killing while the KT hide in/behind it?

So if the teams wants XP and renown, they don't take the easier path. And if your players take a predator tank with them where ever they go, the enemy are far more likely to know where they are and setup anti tank ambushes... and nothing is gonna kill xp and renown like having a predator tank exploded by a bunch of cultists with a missle launcher...

Play the game, reward the players for taking risks, and punish them for failure. Even the most immature player will work out that perhapes they should think about the cituation before they throw a tank at every problem they run into.