I still think it's silly for a man portable lascannon to be stronger than a tank cannon.

And I dunno about you, but I like how the high lethality on P-Scale means things move fast.

The high AP value of IG things are a problem for me since secessionists WILL be fought.

I still think it's silly for a man portable lascannon to be stronger than a tank cannon.

You may of course think as you wish, but the tank cannon is IMO stronger than a lascannon - in its own game. It has a higher range and it can eradicate entire squads. The only thing it can't do is pierce heavy armour, but then again it wasn't designed to.

Frankie said:

The battle cannon is basically 1940's technology. It's not even as good as a modern tank cannon. The lascannon is a concentrated high power laser of a sort that can't even been made today. Welcome to the Imperium of Man.

Plus the Battle Cannon is loaded with High-Explosive rounds by default, not dedicated anti-tank munitions. Its basically the frag grenade of tank cannons.

The Vanquisher really needs to have better penetration though, as well as the Anti-Tank rounds for the Battle Cannon being more worthwhile. Even just 5 or 8 points of penetration would make a difference. Or, perhaps the armor rating of the Russ and similar tanks should be adjusted a bit.

I'm not really sure what, but something should change.

GalagaGalaxian said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again, loudly and often. The armor on the Russ… on all the vehicles… is to high. On the tabletop a guardman with a frag grenade (S4) has a 1 in 6 chance of scoring a glancing hit of the rear armor of a Russ (Armor 10), rear and side of a Chimera or Chimera hull variant (Hellhound or Basalisk) and everywhere on a Sentinel. Since frag grenades in Only War do 2d10 X Pen 0 damage, that means the rear armor on a Russ ought to be less than 20… probably around 16 or 18 would be a more "accurate" number. All the other armor values should be reduced by a similar amount.

@Lucius

I consider it questionable whether the RPG should strive to mirror the TT too closely, as both games have their own requirements.

Cifer said:

Agreed, since the TT is a d6 system, weapon stats are very…generalized and similar…This is a d100 system, so while you can use the TT as a (very) rough guide, it's pointless to base it on examples such as Guardsmen throwing frags at vehicle rear armour.

Actually, if you consider the tabletop an abstraction, the frags are entirely justified. AFAIK, you use them in melee, right? Well, if you get in melee with a tank, there's a very specific application for a frag grenade: Pry open the hatch and drop it inside. Chunky Salsa ensues.

Tossing them in hatches (seriously, who wouldn't lock the things!) is not attacking the armour with the grenade, so it's not relevant here I'm afraid.

And according to 5th Ed, assault attacks vs vehicles with grenades are specifically against the armour, not prying parts open to the squishy crew. They are not a weapon that should be considered against the tank, crew yes, if you can get a hold of them, tank no. Only way around I can think of this is tossing molotovs down the exhausts..which is what the Russians did. But again, thats going for the crew, and has nothing to do with a vehicles given AP.

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.