Is 6th Edition 40K the Death of the Dreadnought?
August 27, 2012 by darrell
Video Sponsors: Mercs - Dark Age
Taking a look at which models lost out, with the change to Warhammer 40K 6th Edition. Have Dreadnoughts taken such a blasting that they're resigned to the bottom of the box?
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I am still quite new to 40k, I thought only 1 model from a unit that is equiped with Krak grenades can use a Krak grenade per assult. Or is that only in the shooting phase?
In the shooting phase they only 1 model can throw a grenade however in combat any model can use a grenade but they can only make 1 attack if they do.
It only states the 1 grenade per unit rule for the shooting phase, it makes no remark about this limit for assaults.
Ironclad’s are front armor 13, so would still provide a reasonable roadblock as they are immune to Krak grenades until immobilized.
But then you have the option to let your power fist die, then take advantage of the new “Our Weapons are Useless rule”, which many people seem to be forgetting about.
I didn’t realize that when a walker is immobilized now it gets hit on rear armour.
I still think dreadnoughts can be useful, although it does look like long range is a better option now. I’m still going to use mine, chaos dreadnoughts are always fun 🙂
Dreadnoughts took a helluva hit with hull points, maybe they were slightly too tough to begin with but hull points combined with everyone throwing grenades about like its Call Of Duty reduce the viable targets for a dread way down to the units that don’t have krak grenade equivelents- which is really just eldar guardians, howling banshees etc and tau fire warriors, and they both supposedly get new codices early next year, so that might not be for long- anything else is pretty much guaranteed to glance a dread to death in short order .
true that walkers are littlebit less effective but
they can overwatch
if they have Dcl Cmb weap they have ap2 attacks on I value
so the thing that you use to destroy the walker can get hurt itself
also there are walkers with av 13 -13-10 or 11
so that can be very hurtfull itself, and melta boms are now I1
I love Hull points, and its also funny that now players have their Dreadnoughts- even Ironclads- avoid my Firewarriors because they have EMP grenades.
Grancing to death is awesome.
As a long time Necron player, I agree wholeheartedly. In 5th I once managed to glance to death a chaos land raider, but it must have taken a dozen glancing hits to do the job.
Yup, this sucks for many dread players. I’m not too worried as I play Ironclads for assaulting and rifleman dreads in my backfield. The former are still pretty tough against anything that is S6 or below, and the latter rarely got assaulted. Definitely worse than before. The new rules really, really hurt vanilla marine players. The only new rule that helps my army is that Thunderfire Cannons are no longer vehicles and are tough to wound.
I think that change was more or less fair if you consider that Walkers with Frontarmor 13 often cost 50 percent of an infantry squad. Even now, you still need someone with a powerfist or meltabombs to win close combat. Powerfists may become more seldom because of the new challenges, and you can still support the walker with a cheap character that challenges the opponents powerfistguy. Two or more Close-Combat Walkers together are still a tough nut to crack for almost all infantry squads and all kinds of vehicles as well.
Another major change is the new rules for Transports. They are so easy to hit that it is not a good idea to concentrate them at a place near the opponents units. The popular Imperial Guard veterans with meltas and chimera for example got much worse. Now they can only do snapshots after 12 inches, which makes it difficult to get their target of choice. The effective range of the Meltas is reduced from 18 to 12 inches, inside charge-distance. So you will have to expose them before they strike. You can still move 6, put the rear of the chimera to the opponent and sent your guys on a suicide run. However, this is a bit risky with such an expensive troop-choice. They are supposed to live at the end of the game to hold objectives. On the other hand, other anti-tank choices like Devildog with multimelta, Manticor or Medusa got much better due to the blast and fast vehicle rules.
I only ever used rifle dreads and furioso’s which I will stick to as they havn’t got to bad.
I have always said that hull points have made vehicles weaker, finally someone agrees lol
I don’t think vehicles are weaker in absolute terms, there are advantages to hull points, like not losing functionality (weapon destroyed/immobilised) from glances.
I’d say hull points have made vehicles worth their points. The Rhino can be wrecked more easily by small arms, but you’d still need a decent anti-tank weapon to be likely to destroy it in one shot. At the other end of the scale the Land Raider is about as easy to wreck as in 5th (standard 3 weapons and mobility, vs 4 hull points), but keeps kicking longer, which is ultimately what you want in a deathstar transport.
I posted this before under another topic, but it bears repeating: I think the hull points make vehicles less survivable. When you think about it, with the old rules you would sometimes glance, and you could roll and damage something, or get shaken or stunned. Now you get three glances and most vehicles are useless. I play Sisters of Battle, and their Penitent engine would ignore vehicle shaken and stunned, but now it doesn’t matter, since three glaces kill it.
Also, they forgot Overwatch for the Dread, and the Dread would attack before the powerfist, since he would attack on Int 1.
One more thing, with the utmost respect to Warren, Darrell and all of the BOW guys. Please don’t move around so much in your videos. It is very distracting to watch, as you guys sway and shuffle left and right. It may sound picky, but I am an actor, and it is very distracting to the viewer. Maybe sit on stools?
Thanks guys keep up the good work.
Yep, you ARE being picky about the guys movement, but that’s all good lol 🙂
I …like the new Hull points rule in concept…for vehicles in general although I believe they don’t have ENOUGH hull points.
Dreadnoughts are hard done by because GW have always made them out to be CC monsters. Now all of a sudden they have done a switch around and made them fragile in CC which is a major philosophy change in not only game play, but in fluff terms as well.
Personally this is what I see as just another rules change for the sake of changing rules. Overall the rule is poorly thought out in terms of the Dreadnoughts history and mythos and inadequately refined for vehicle combat survivability.
I agree that the points on most things are too low, and in some cases too close to things that should be weaker- look at the Leman russ and chimera, both on 3 hull points, the same as the lighter and in fluff terms supposedly less well armoured rhino, or the built from sheet metal and girders ork trukk, It seems a tad disrespectful to the LRMBT that its so easy to create a scenario were you have as much chance to wreck it as a piece of ex farm machinery with a greenskin and a gun bolted on- just go round the back.
As a Tyranid player I don’t see how it was fair in 6th edition for my 30 Hormagaunts to get tied up by one Dreadnought.
Hmmm. Those marines had Krak grenades giving them Strength 6 against the Dread. Most infantry don’t have Krak grenades, I believe?
Half the armies are Space Marines so I would say that most infantry do in fact have krak grenades.
Well when you put it like that… ha ha!
I’m new to 40k but I thought only models in base to base could have attacked with Krak grenades and overwatch was not done so that could have made a difference possibly tying up combat for another round
Vehicles can’t overwatch and that includes Walkers.
Yes they can. Pg 84. “Unlike other vehicles, Walkers can overwatch” Bottom line on the left in bold.
Armoured Sentinel Squadrons are arguably better at tarpitting a unit now due to having 4 hull Points between two models and the same front armour as a standard Dreadnaught. They’re less likely to kill anything back but with the dice shown in the video You’d only have killed one of the 2 and be stuck in combat.
So Squadrons I think got a boost with hull points especially now you can just leave immobilized vehicles behind and split the squadron.
Is it the end of the dreadnought? No I don’t think so, it is the start of players having to use the right variant for the job. The Dreadnought is a versatile weapons platforms that fulfil a specific role such as Close Combat Monster (Ironclad), Close Infantry Support (AC/MM & CCW) or Long Range Fire Support (Rifleman). If you use them in a role they are not equipped for you will have major issues, I mean consistently not just from a lucky roll. Attacking the rear armour of an immobilised walker makes sense as does using weapon skill to hit, could be worse they could have made them ws 1 to hit like vehicles. I don’t think its quite as bad as you’re making it out to be, Dreadnoughts still have good odds when used right it just means a change of tactics for 6th.
Hull points are not all bad, ask anybody who runs orks how many times they had their 200+pt battle wagon taken out from a single glance on turn 1 in 5th or a trukk wrecked or immobilised from a single glancing bolter round. Hull points help open-topped especially with glancing ap1.In 5th glancing ap1 against open-topped was basically a penetrating hit, 50% of the time that vehicle is done just from being glanced once.
I always thought that dreadnoughts should have had wounds like monstrous creatures (as that was a distinct advantage when getting shot at). I think these new hull point rule make for a good analog to multiple wounds for vehicles.
Ahhh that terrain, it,s just beautiful. I’ve tried making something similar with foam and a hot wire cutter. Doesn’t even come close to this. Pretty pretty please show us soon how you made it. What colors you used and so on…I’d rather play 6th edition on terrain like this than 5th on my own board. Yers I know this doesn’t say anything just trying to get them to show us mortals how they did it.
Did I mention that I like the terrain, you guys even managed to get colors in all the little cracks. Can’t see any blue foam anywhere (or pink or whatever you guys used).
I run an ironclad in a drop pod and it is very survivable, especially in terrain with defensive granades. Doble flamers scare most units into not assaulting.
The core weak point in the rules is that units are locked in melee.
If all units could break off from combat, then 40K would be a much more sci-fi kind of game.
If you cannot possibly damage your opponent there is a new rule, “we can’t bring it down” or something, where you can fall back away from someone whom you can’t destroy. Forget the details now. Pretty good though.
It’s called “our weapons are useless” I believe.
Yes (pg 26), but it only allows you to choose to automatically fail a morale check at the end of losing a combat. Marines could already do that. Others are in danger of being wiped out with a sweeping advance, but if they want a chance to shoot the dread rather than keep it tied up while it slowly kills your squad then I guess it could work.
Space Marines can only choose to fail a moral check if they have Combat Tactics. As most people take a character, unless the character is a Smurf, its replaced with their chapter tactics.
This rule definitely opens the way for some interesting material gain sacrifices.
I quite like the new Hull Pt changes.
You can’t just spam all your vehicles & win like in 5th Ed. You have to be more thoughtful with your pts, because still: you need some vehicles.
Vindicators & Lemons are almost standard now with their ability to blast away that pesky group of 10 termies in one go.
Something no one else mentioned is how great the hull pts system works for APOCALYPSE games! No more endless recordings of WD’s, immobilised results & so on.
A simple change is just: all vehicles get +1 HP. A glance takes away 1HP, a pen 2. When all HP’s are gone, the vehicle explodes (because everyone wants to see explosions in an apoc game).
About dreads… Well, I ally my DIY chapter with Guard, so I don’t really need rifleman dreads anyway. But when I take guard as my standard FOC, and excellent Allied Detachement is: Libby+DeathCompany+DC Dreadnought+Stormraven
Alright, it’s got 3HP, but it ignores shacken&stunned, has 6 (!) Attacks (rerolling to wound), and for every kill… yes, you get it.
Although its correct, dreads in general are more squishy now, I still think Furioso’s , especially death company ones with blood talons, are still worth fielding, and very much worth the points costs.
A lot of the examples given are patently ridiculous; you can’t consider one unit in isolation when you field many. You can’t just throw fresh units at each other since it’s perfectly reasonable to expect that they’ll have taken some damage.
Personally I think the Hull Point system is a good way of balancing vehicles, saying Land Raiders got harder I disagree with entirely, previous to 6th you could glance one 20 times and it would quite happily continue rolling all over your face. Now it can take 4 maximum ever. It’s still not soft, but it’s not taking the piss any more either.
On the other hand I generally disliked dreads because if I saw one I’d throw a couple of rockets at it and that would be it dealt with, locked out the game, immobilised or simply exploding. Hell, I’ve consistently fielded double Vindicators simply due to the fact that I knew one of them wouldn’t even be able to fire. Having one stunlocked by glances felt cheap and I’m glad it’s gone.
There’s plenty of units that can be engaged by an assault based walker that will have a hard time dealing with it, the fact that a Space Marine Tactical Squad (who are arguable designed to be able to engage anything and everything in the game and have a chance of bringing it down) says less about the Dread and more about the fact that the tac squad is now capable of doing what they should do.
Great, another one of my favorite models nerfed beyond repair. Warmachine is looking better and better all the time.
I wouldn’t say it’s been horrendously nerfed. It just can’t be used for cheap tie-up tactics any more. On the plus side you can’t rely on a single glancing hit from a missile to immobilise a Dreadnought on the first turn and effectively take it out of the game.
STOP STEPPING SIDE TO SIDE!!! seriously just stand still and deliver a good video, its so distracting and awkward. it looks like you really need to piss and should have just done a fucking podcast
Blood talons will now be very useful
We play with a house rule in our gaming club that’s as follows: hull points are removed normally, but no rolls are made on the Vehicle Damage Table. Instead, any Penetrating Hit while the vehicle is still alive you roll a D6: on a roll of 1-4 its Crew Shaken; on a 5-6 its Crew Stunned and the vehicle loses one additional Hull Point.
When Hull Points have reached 0 the vehicle still remains in play, but Glancing Hits get to roll on the Vehicle Damage Table (as do Penetrating Hits (Penetrating Hits get +2 on the roll).
We’ve found that while this doesn’t bring vehicles up to their original nigh-indestructible glory, it does give them more survivability again without giving them too much. It also makes Extra Armour a lot more valuable as you can negate those Stunned and additional Hull Point losses.
Hull points are cool, but if they are gonna do it that way, they should make additional armor give a hull point or two.