On poison e splinter weapons.

Given all that crazy stuff maybe will get some too.

What do Space Marines use against hordes? I thought that hordes were the meta in 8th so every army struggles against them.

All the combiflamers! And flamers, and various forms of bolters, and twin everything, and frag missiles. And punches I guess.

Flamers, heavy flamer, flamestorm cannons, twin assault cannons, stormravens etc, etc.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Burnage wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

With the re-rolls of 1 it's the same as firing a bolter at a GEQ.

And I think that would put them in a good spot. Do they need to be better than a Bolter at firing at GEQ?

Unless we get other, better options for dealing with hordes, yes they do! This is essentially our only option against Hordes. We don't have flamers, we don't have 'blast' weapons, we don't have close combat options - it's splinter weapons or nothing!

Well, I'm assuming that in our Codex we'll be getting a lot of buffs to our other options and maybe some entirely new anti-horde toys, so splinter weaponry won't need much of a boost to be up to par.

If that's an incorrect assumption, then yeah, buff away please.

I want terror weapons like every squad member punches itself or gets a strength 3 attack or stuff like that.

... so I had a crazy thought ... One so crazy only an archon would think it up (Not really) ... What if we gave our splinter weapons a str value like Pistols are str 6, ... rifles, shard carbines, splinter pods are str 7 and splinter cannons are Str 8 we make our PGL stackable (to a Max of -4) and our archon get a -1 ld debuff aura to all enemy units within 12" of him ... Get the armor of misery back ... And (this is the crazy idea part) our splinter weapons wound against the targets leadership o.o ... (Still wounding vehicles on 6's ) as I see it, a units leadership is their mental fortitude ... And the poisons in the rifles (to the best of my knowledge) aren't meant to kill but to disable for easy slave pickings. I am fully aware that this isnt a good idea ... But thought I'd put it out there...

Archon_91 wrote:

And (this is the crazy idea part) our splinter weapons wound against the targets leadership o.o ...

Great idea. That way you can only wound orkz on a 6 because they all have LD 30.

CptMetal wrote:

I want terror weapons like every squad member punches itself or gets a strength 3 attack or stuff like that.

Ah man, I still haven't gotten over the loss of the Terrorfex from the 3.5 codex. A cheap, spammable upgrade that had a ~50% chance to pin units? I loved that thing so much. Being as pinning isn't really a thing anymore, a weapon that could force immediate Morale checks would be cool, though I suppose still wouldn't help against the hordes that all ignore Morale.

I came back to think about why Splinter weapons work the way they work. The idea was to have a weapon that works against small and big enemies alike. The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the original implementation of this concept simply does not work in 8th edition (and it only worked before because we could spam Venoms).

With higher body counts on one end of the spectrum and increased wounds on the other one, a straight 4+ to wound for 1 damage does not fare well. As established, it is inefficient against T3 spam and monsters can shrug off wounds much easier. Now, we can come up with additional rules but I am afraid we will just end up with 4-5 lines of rules for all Splinter weapons.

But what if we could kill monsters reliably without the expense of bad T3 performance? This can easily be done with a Strength value and increased damage per target. I thought of a Bolter with 2 damage, but that might be too strong. But what if Splinter weapons are straight S4 and deal an additional damage on a 5+ to wound?

For every shot, you have a 33% chance to deal 2 damage to a single target. We suddenly wound T3 on a 3+ and the weapon would find new value in killing MCs and Primaris alike. I wouldn't mind a slight price increase for Splinter weapons they'd work this way.

Splinter fire getting buffed in terms of damage honestly makes it pretty OP. If you buff splinter weaponry, you make it god damn silly against things like Daemons, Nidzillas, or Tau suits.

I don't think we need a splinter buff, I think we just need a better option for anti-infantry. Whether it's melee or making shredders good and accessible in numbers to handle it, I don't know.

Chippen wrote:

Splinter fire getting buffed in terms of damage honestly makes it pretty OP. If you buff splinter weaponry, you make it god damn silly against things like Daemons, Nidzillas, or Tau suits.

I don't think we need a splinter buff, I think we just need a better option for anti-infantry. Whether it's melee or making shredders good and accessible in numbers to handle it, I don't know.

Nothing anyone's suggested amounts to more than a very marginal bump against high Toughness models. I think The Strange Dark One's proposal would be the biggest boost, and that's still only a jump from .5 to .66 successful to-wound rolls per hit. Not exactly meta-breaking. That said I agree Splinter doesn't need to get better at killing monsters, but not because it'd be too good at it, but rather because it's already obviated in that role by so many other options in our army.

I'm skeptical that any particular change to Shredders and Liquifier Guns would be enough to cover our gap in anti-infantry, but beyond that I'd also prefer for the basic guns on our most common rank and file troop to not be so roundly lackluster. Changing Splinter away from the very narrow niche of "anti-Monster" that it's so clearly outcompeted in and moving it to a more anti-infantry role fixes both problems.

Deris87 wrote:

I'm skeptical that any particular change to Shredders and Liquifier Guns would be enough to cover our gap in anti-infantry, but beyond that I'd also prefer for the basic guns on our most common rank and file troop to not be so roundly lackluster. Changing Splinter away from the very narrow niche of "anti-Monster" that it's so clearly outcompeted in and moving it to a more anti-infantry role fixes both problems.

I think bad/overpriced wargear (for the most part) is only half the truth. Another issue is that there are only few options to get them in the first place. Scourges and Trueborn are our only means for massed Kabalite wargear. But even then, choice of wargear is limited and these models also have shortcomings on their own. And there's also no way of bringing any reasonable amount of Coven wargear.

I wouldn't mind our bland Splinter weaponry, if we had enough special weapons to make up for their weaknesses. 2x special weapons for Troop choices, 4x special/heavy weapons for Elite choices. I think this is reasonable for a specialist army.

We need splinter to change to avoid paying for privilege like we do with trueborn. I also like rifles and want them to be useful. We need to look to the shardcarbine. Here's a table for why!

This table assumes all hit. Which is fine since all these comparisons have the same BS.

Wound Vs	Guardsman	Space Marine	Terminator w/ Storm Shield	Wraithlord	Tervigon	Scout Sentinel	Chimera	Land Raider
Splinter Rifle	0.67	0.33	0.17	0.33	0.33	0.17	0.11	0.06
Boltgun	0.89	0.33	0.17	0.22	0.11	0.33	0.22	0.06
Shuriken Catapult	1	0.5	0.22	0.33	0.28	0.5	0.39	0.11
Shardcarbine	1	0.5	0.25	0.5	0.5	0.25	0.17	0.08
Hot-Shot Lasgun	1	0.44	0.22	0.22	0.22	0.56	0.22	0.17
Gauss Flayer	1.11	0.5	0.33	0.33	0.17	0.44	0.33	0.11

The splinter rifle is the worst. No question. The only place it performs well is high toughness monsters. Even then, only significantly at the extremely rare T8.

Shardcarbines look even with the Shuriken Catapult. They have a significant advantage (usually +33%) against really big monsters and an even more significant disadvantage (>100%) against all <T8 vehicles.

Drukhari should keep to their Aeldari roots. Shardcarbines go that direction. Plus, assault weapons fit Drukhari much better than the rapid fire. A guardian costs 8 pts compared to a warrior's 7. I'd gladly pay 8 pts for a warrior with a shardcarbine. That'd be all the change I want.

Drukhari special weapons might need some work but lets be very careful about not letting that affect the basic weapons. Especially in terms of paying for the privilege of getting more special weapons. What if I don't wanna? Don't make me pay for something I don't get.

----------------------------------------------------

Bullet points

* Shardcarbines are a great alternative to the splinter rifle
* Drukhari need Assault weapons
* Special weapons should not affect the base no-upgrade dude
* Fixing special weapons does not fix the splinter rifle

Edit: Added Hot-Shot Las and Gauss Flayers for my own giggles

I think we should not be comparing so much to bolters.
I think the comparison to lasguns and shuriken catapults is more fair. Both come on models within 1 point of our price range. Similar stats (bs 3+ t3 save5+).
Here we can see that we are definitly less effective then shuriken, but slightly more effective then lasguns. Now with shuriken this can be more or less be accepted, yes it is worse, but we also have double the range. So depending on what craftworld get's as bonusses this only puts us slightly behind. Then again how much normal dark eldar gardians do you see on battlefields. They are also not that great, and are usually replaced with the better options in the codex at the first oppertunity. Lasguns on the other hand, with their acces to cheap orders are suddenly twice as good as our weapons against GEQ or 33% more effective against t4 as effective against t6+ monsters and against light vehicles 4 times as effective. This is way above our standards.

I tend to field guardians a lot. Combine with a farseer tossing out guide and doom for reroll failed hits and wounds and you seen practically anything MELT under their fire. This is where our lack of force multipliers kicks in again. Be it orders or psychic powers, lasguns and catapults are both able to put out a lot more firepower than it looks like on paper.

Guardians have range 12 (18 for the overpriced Avengers) and can't shoot from a vehicle. I'm glad their damage output is superior, otherwise there would be no reason to play Guardians and not Kabalites.

When you compare Boltgun and Splinter rifle, try and divide each weapon's damage output by the price of its owner. Of course the SM weapon is better than ours, their basic infantry is A LOT more expensive than ours. And can't shoot from vehicles, again.

Yes, of course the stats are better for Shuriken. More importantly the style is better. Short range, more damage. That's what I think would improve Drukhari. Especially with the basic weapon.

Right now, I don't care if I were to pay 5pts for a warrior, the rifle just isn't working. They cause so few casualties.

Mppqlmd wrote:

When you compare Boltgun and Splinter rifle, try and divide each weapon's damage output by the price of its owner

In that case you also have to take all other stats into account. Not all the points are spent on the gun.

Mppqlmd wrote:

And can't shoot from vehicles, again.

I really don't like that point. It promotes paying for privilege. The cost burden should be on the vehicle in that case, NOT on the things inside. What if you field a warrior on foot? Why should you pay for the ability in a Raider?

RegoCrux wrote:

Yes, of course the stats are better for Shuriken. More importantly the style is better. Short range, more damage. That's what I think would improve Drukhari. Especially with the basic weapon.

Right now, I don't care if I were to pay 5pts for a warrior, the rifle just isn't working. They cause so few casualties.

Mppqlmd wrote:

When you compare Boltgun and Splinter rifle, try and divide each weapon's damage output by the price of its owner

In that case you also have to take all other stats into account. Not all the points are spent on the gun.

Mppqlmd wrote:

And can't shoot from vehicles, again.

I really don't like that point. It promotes paying for privilege. The cost burden should be on the vehicle in that case, NOT on the things inside. What if you field a warrior on foot? Why should you pay for the ability in a Raider?

I was about to say the same this about the Open top vehicles.

You pay for the rules ON the unit for those rule NOT for other units. Open top is a perfect example.

I also agree that if Warriors were 5pts i still wouldnt like them, but i would take more of them lol.

Honestly if we get Stratagems that are equal to orders for 1 CP. It would make a 10man unit with Cannons worth it.

Quote :

Honestly if we get Stratagems that are equal to orders for 1 CP. It would make a 10man unit with Cannons worth it.

Or, simply, Splinter Racks...

To go on a bit of tangent, Open-topped being built into the cost of our Raiders is still a problem for our units that can't take advantage of it. Incubi pay just as much for a Raider as Warriors, and are paying for the privilege of a rule they can't use. I'm not sure what the best option would be to resolve that, but in previous editions Open-topped had advantages for both shooting and melee units. I think it'd be great if our fragile, expensive assault units could get some extra movement out of their expensive fragile transport the turn they assault--maybe the return of disembarking after moving for Open-topped vehicles. Otherwise maybe the "Open-topped" effect could become a function of an optional Splinter Rack upgrade (preferably on top of some additional benefits to shooting), making it so melee units don't have to pay for unusable special rules. Anyone else have any thoughts on that situation?

Deris87 wrote:

To go on a bit of tangent, Open-topped being built into the cost of our Raiders is still a problem for our units that can't take advantage of it. Incubi pay just as much for a Raider as Warriors, and are paying for the privilege of a rule they can't use. I'm not sure what the best option would be to resolve that, but in previous editions Open-topped had advantages for both shooting and melee units. I think it'd be great if our fragile, expensive assault units could get some extra movement out of their expensive fragile transport the turn they assault--maybe the return of disembarking after moving for Open-topped vehicles. Otherwise maybe the "Open-topped" effect could become a function of an optional Splinter Rack upgrade (preferably on top of some additional benefits to shooting), making it so melee units don't have to pay for unusable special rules. Anyone else have any thoughts on that situation?

We will pay a tax somewhere no matter way.

Either Vehicles are 10pts more, or each unit with a gun 1p more per dude.... we already have problems with Wyches and kabals being almost not worth it, them costing 1pt more would make a couple units on foot with a cannon even less worth it, yeah a raider would be 85pts but you take away options of game play.

Also gw is going full on aesthetics. Aesthetically they are open top. (this is an odd one b.c they keep saying this over and over, but we lost Splinter Racks.......)

I'd like Splinter racks back too. It makes assault one into assault two or doubles it for increased effectiveness of Splinter canons

Quote :

Also gw is going full on aesthetics. Aesthetically they are open top.

Go tell that to Necron players

I'm sure Splinter Racks will come back. I just hope it gives TL, and not rerolls to hit. Everyone is getting tons of TL, and we have soooo few.

Mppqlmd wrote:

Quote :

Also gw is going full on aesthetics. Aesthetically they are open top.

Go tell that to Necron players

I'm sure Splinter Racks will come back. I just hope it gives TL, and not rerolls to hit. Everyone is getting tons of TL, and we have soooo few.

The are Holstered and folded on Necrons Ghost Ark

We literally have guys hanging off with Rifles