I just came across this one on B&C and wandered over to Tyranid Hive (yes, it burns the eyes) to see if anything further could be gleaned. Nothing further was.
 |
| She might be pulling Guardsmen out of tanks soon. |
A Glancing hit remove one hull point. A Penetrating hit also removes one hull point, plus you get a roll on the damage table. Once hull points are reduced to zero, the vehicle is destroyed. Which is a HUGE NERF to vehicles. About bloody time!
So a big change to vehicles that was expected in some fashion due to GW's make-everything-good-in-the-previous-edition-crap-in-the-new to sell more stuff. So with most vehicles having 3 wounds/hull points weight of fire becomes much more effective at killing stuff off quickly.
I can see Dreads falling out of favour really fast. Even if I am taking this with lots of salt.
So assuming most average hulls (Rhino chassis, Dread chassis) will have 3 HP, they'll statistically die after 6 glances/pens assuming a 4+ cover save which will by all accounts be harder to get in 6th than it is in 5th so it'll be easier to destroy vehicles than it currently is.
Nid MC's will be looking forward to this, and I'm also looking at GK Razorspam taking a big hit with Fortitude falling in terms of usefulness as a Razor in the open is dead after 3 glances. Units that can have multiple high-S weapons are definitely going to remain very valueable: Blasterborn, Long Fangs, Devs and Autocannon Dreads. Although with only 3 wounds the last of those listed is going to be more vulnerable to its equivalents. Which is all obvious.
One thing is perplexing: the decreased usefulness of the 'Venerable' rule. With this it meant that Dreads would be able to take a hammering and keep going because of the re-roll on the damage chart but this is now basically taken out of the equation by the Hull Points rule as it doesn't matter what results are rolled/re-rolled if 3 cover saves are failed.
But, I have to remind myself that this hasn't been verified just yet and has been taken in isolation, with no mention of whether the Venerable rule will be updated/FAQ'ed to take account of this. It is food for thought though. Or at least food for Nids.