The thing is that, even with AP rounds, the Leman Russ doesn't have a very good cannon.

Even the MP lascannon is pretty lackluster. The AP values are just too high, or Pen waaaay too low.

From the lexicanium regarding the vanquisher cannon: "The good accuracy, long range and high ratio of first-hit kill makes it a choice anti-tank weapon"

High ratio of first-hit kill? As it stands it can't one shot a chimera. Even from the rear facing.

Nevermind, brain fart. Please ignore.

Durandal7 said:

Actually, given the "On Fire!" rules in the vehicle sections Molotovs (Fire Bombs) are actually one of the best anti-tank weapons available to an infantryman right now. Another good trick is dig a hole to hide in (or find some other way to hide) while the tank passes then jump out and stick a magnetized Melta bomb on the rear armor. Really there are all sorts of wonderful Infantry tank-busting tricks you can learn from World War II. A tank crew should really have to roll awareness checks to spot nearby infantry if they're buttoned up in the safety of their armored hide.

But even that melta bomb will only be doing an average of 20 structural damage to a Leman Russ, with 47 (out of 70) structure maximum possible damage. This is on the rear armor of 25 even, though it has good odds of scoring a righteous fury with 6d10 pen 12 damage.

As I said before, I don't think heavy anti-tank weapons should necessarily be one-hit kills on average, but they should certainly do a LOT of damage on a good roll. I mean, there are plenty of guns in the book that can kill a guardsman in one or two shots, so why should tanks be different?

I will say its hilariously bad when your best option for taking out a light vehicle is to actually ram it, not shoot it.

If Accurate actually applied to it, It would still be a little short. Perhaps dropping Pen to 12 and adding Razor-Sharp? A mild glance of the round does little, but a solid hit has a spectacular effect. Average on a fully accurate hit would be 32.5 Pen 24. That's four mildly-below-average hits in side armor to destroy it, three in the back. One hit of max damage on rear armor would leave the crew counting the Emperor's Blessings and scrambling to escape out the hatches.

Well, accurate applies now, and its 3d10+10….

Not too shabby now.

KommissarK said:

Yup, much better now.

A decent fix, but it still doesn't solve the problem of several other anti-tank weapons barely being able to do much to a Russ even to the rear armor.

Imperial vehicles do seem to be far too durable right now. If the system worked like it did in the tabletop (armour penetrated = critical hit) then they'd be fine, but with those substantial buffers of Structural Integrity to keep them going they're absurdly durable. A Leman Russ can take three max damage hits from a Lascannon to its front armour before dropping into the criticals, and that's perfect rolls from the dedicated anti-armour weapon in the game. If it's doing average damage (37, Pen 10) it'll be taking tiny scratches out of that 70 SP bulk. You have the same result with a Melta Gun, supposedly the infrantryman's tank killer, when applied to the rear armour. If the Melta trait kicks in and you do as much damage as possibly you'll take a chunk out of its SP, but not a huge amount, and an average roll won't give the vehicle much trouble at all.

I think a reduction in the SP for some of the bigger vehicles would be in order, as well as a small decrease to armour values. As it is tank killer weapons simply aren't threatening enough.

At least what I'm doing is halving SI on IG vehicles, and then nerfing Ram to deal half the AP in damage instead of full.

I'd personally reduce the SI by about 1/3, and reduce armour by about 10 or so. It'd make Vanquishers and other anti-tank guns better at actually causing damage.

MILLANDSON said:

I agree. If you look at the venerable vechicle apocrypha, you'll see that rhino had Armour about 21/18. For a rough guidance I would assume tabletop AV 10 as armour 20 (or even less in sentinels, ork trukks, etc), then increase by 5 for every point above 10. eg 11=25, 12=30, 13-35, 14-40.

I think there also should be consequences for crew, for penetrating armour. It's a bit stupid that vechicle can take a pounding, and only on the last 10 hp something actually happens. The table in vechicle apocrypha was too harsh. You would need a new one, perhaphs with entries up to 150+. Then up to 70 you should be more or less ok. More than 70 something starts to break, and fall off. Fires, blown weapons, tires, engine damages, and from about 120 wrecked. For every critical point of damage you get +10 to roll on the table.

As a note, the battle cannon in tabletop is actually an excellent anti-tank weapon. It is more than capable of murdering a Russ from the side or most any other tank from the front. Unless this has changed in 6th edition, battle cannons are considered "ordnance", which means they roll twice for armor penetration and take the higher roll. That puts it at least on par with a lascannon for shooting anything except the front armor of a leman russ or something equally tough. And against a leman russ, it still has a pretty decent chance of scoring a glancing blow frontally and hurting it.

This really only seems to be an issue for Imperial Guard vehicles, since they probably assumed only PCs would use them for who knows why. The rest are mostly fine for SI/armor.