Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K Hot Mess: Tank Shock Isn’t Quite There
Goatboy here again with another Warhammer 40K Hot Mess. I want to talk about Tank Shock, and how GW needs to make it matter!
The idea of Tank Shock is a method for these big machines to do something if they charge into combat. The old days of previous editions, used to have Tank Shock be able to “splat” a model if it ran over it, and they failed a save of some sort. It was an old rule that wasn’t very fun and could shift a game if you rolled badly. Or it more often did nothing at all when your giant tank rushed in.
Tank Shock in 10th Edition
The new 10th Edition rules Tank Shock rule sets up a simpler way to grant that damage and really makes Tank Shock work more easily. It also makes some units really powerful who can use it on top of being decent in combat. While I don’t want to remove that interaction I do think it should expand to more than just vehicles and really take into account the idea that a giant bulk of anything coming in hot should do some damage.
Tank Shock Idea 1 – Create a Tank Shock-like Rule for Monsters
You could call this Crushing Bulk and let Monsters have a chance to cause Mortal Wounds on the charge. It could be the model’s Melee strength plus the distance it traveled for the charge. This way, it would be different than Tank Shock. Plus, it would add something useful for those armies with Monsters that might not be crazy strong but still make it into combat. You would do the maximum cap of 6 mortal wounds like the regular Tank Shock, so it doesn’t get out of hand.
Tank Shock Idea 2 – Let Tank Shock Include Monstrous Creatures
This one is simple too as it just says – increase the Tank Shock rule to MC’s. This way Primarchs could be scary and let them interact well. It would need some balancing on some of the MC’s but most of the time they should let them quickly clean chaff out and just be valuable as bully units.
Tank Shock Idea 3 – Create an MC Rule that Improves MC Charging
Crushing Bulk(see #1 above) could be something that is just an MC add-on rule that comes with the keyword. It might just add in extra attacks that are connected to their Toughness. It could just be a way it can do more damage like gaining Sustained Hits etc. It could be just some other rule addition to make MCs unique and just not another Tank Shock rework.
I always feel like Monstrous Creatures still need some tuning to get working right. Vehicles feel good right now, but the other side of it needs some work. They need to be scary when they come into combat hot and angry. There are armies that don’t have vehicles, so it makes a “universal” Stratagem – not that universal, which is a shame.
Tank Shock is a decent rule and just some tuning from GW would be a cool thing.
