[Commissar_Will]

One of many things we discussed at the TO meet-up was the matter of the Executioner. Under the new codex it is absolutely beastly to the point of just being ridiculous. As SILK said, Terminators are fair game for it due to weight of AP, Orks are fair game due to weight of blasts, light vehicles are fair game because weight of blasts makes a direct hit very likely - basically, pretty much anything apart from a Land Raider is toast. And personally, I reckon that such obscene firepower should be mitigated by something other than a high points cost. As fluff makes reference to Executioners being feared by tank crews for being highly unreliable, with poor cooling systems often resulting in crews abandoning their own tanks as the interior fills with vented plasma, it makes sense to me that given the sheer amount of power required to pump out so much plasma at such a great rate, the Executioner should really be an exception to the normal rules about Gets Hot! not affecting vehicles. As such, I propose that the following special rule should apply to Executioner tanks. I don't know how much, if at all, it should affect the points cost, but I think that it will make the Executioner a far more interesting vehicle to use, as well as decreasing the cheese factor of the tank considerably.

Volatile Weaponry: The extremely high energy requirements of the Executioner's tempremental and little-understood main armament mean that it is prone to malfunctioning in battle, sometimes with disastrous results for the tank or it's crew. To represent this, roll a D6 for every shot the Executioner Cannon fires. If a 1 is rolled some form of mishap has occured and the player must roll on the following table to determine what happens.

1/2 No effect - Excess plasma is safely vented, heat shields remain intact and the tank carries on regardless with no adverse effects.

3 Batten down the hatches! - A minor containment failure means that the crew must divert all their attention to maintaining the heat shields, ensuring that they aren't reduced to charred skeletons. The tank is treated as having suffered a Crew Stunned result on the vehicle damage table for the player's next turn.

4 Major Overheat - Large amounts of excess plasma pour out of the tank's emergency coolant vents as the weapon's heat shields begin to fail. Place a Template at the barrel of the malfunctioning weapon and roll a scatter die to determine the direction that the atomised plasma is blown in, re-rolling any Direct Hit rolls. Move the Template so that it is parralel with the direction of the arrow with the narrow end still touching the barrel of the weapon. Any models (friend or foe) covered by the Template suffer a S5 AP4 hit.

5 Weapon Destroyed! - The weapon is destroyed, and cannot be fired for the remainder of the game.

6 Crew Killed! - Whether they were slowly cooked inside the tank by leaking plasma after the hatch jammed, blown up by a malfunctioning weapon or simply shot by the Commissar for deserting their vehicle, this tank isn't doing anything with it's crew dead. The tank counts as having suffered a Vehicle Destroyed result on the vehicle damage table.

[Hairy Grim]

Good thinking & I like the risk it would make people take. Though I assume 'rolling 1s to hit' with it is from rolling a D6 before firing the weapon like with the 'Gets Hot!' rule, rather than on either of the d6 used for scatter distance (which would mean it probably wouldn't survive past turn 3)?

Don't think it should affect anything other than the main cannon, as that would mean it's sponsons are more volatile than other tanks', as well as making it suffer damage almost every other turn.

[enderwiggin]

I agree with the main cannon bit, good rule(s) here.

[Commissar_Will]

Yeah, I think you're right about it only applying to the main cannon, otherwise it'd be just a little harsh. I've changed the wording a little.

[khanaris]

I do think it should have had a Gets Hot penalty of some kind. But GW hasn't been very good about putting those sorts of drawbacks into the last few books. Aside from Orks, of course, where they are part of the theme.

[Wargamer]

Have you considered the following:

Firing Mode:
The Plasma Destructor has two firing modes; Sustained and Maximal. When firing on Sustained mode, it uses the fules for the Plasma Cannon. When firing on Maximal, it uses the Heavy 3 Blast profile. However, it may not fire the Destructor next turn, as the plasma core must be recharged.

So, you can still pump out an ungodly amount of Plasma Blast, just only during every other turn.

[Arnorath]

This is an excellent idea, Commissar_Will. I always thought that vehicle-mounted plasma weaponry in general should have some version of the Gets Hot rule, if less dangerous than the infantry version. Even if regular sponson-mounted plasma cannons don't get it, the Executioner definitely needs it.

I like Wargy's idea - but only in the sense that it could be applied to the ideas already presented. How about this - when firing at maximum power, the modified Gets Hot rule comes into play, but when used in Sustained mode, the weapon functions like any other vehicle-mounted plasma cannon.

[khanaris]

I think the rules would need to emphasize the fact that this really isn't a very reliable weapon. Giving it an every-other-turn mode wouldn't really do that. I think it needs a random element in the same manner as infantry plasma weapons.

[Wargamer]

Originally Posted by Khanaris

I think the rules would need to emphasize the fact that this really isn't a very reliable weapon. Giving it an every-other-turn mode wouldn't really do that. I think it needs a random element in the same manner as infantry plasma weapons.

Why?

Plasma Cannons don't have such rules (on vehicles), and nor do Plasma Blastguns, Plasma Destructors (the "Titan" Plasma Destructors, not the Executioner one) and even Plasma Annihilators, built for use on Starships, don't have any kind of unreliability.

In short, the unstable "this is going to kill you" nature of Plasma applies entirely on the infantry version - vehicles can carry sufficient cooling systems to make them safe to use.

[Commissar_Will]

Quoted from Lexicanum:

Current ideas and superstitions around the Executioner are mainly centred on their tendency to explode. This is due to the temperamental weapon, the Plasma Destroyer, and its extremely high energy output. The crew are protected by both emergency coolant vents and heat shielding, which is enough to save them during a catastrophic containment field failure and give them time to escape. Many also include an emergency coolant flask at the rear of the vehicle with twin coolant lines running over the top of the vehicle to the weapon, but these are subject to battle damage and are less than reliable. Many green tank crews are likely to abandon their vehicle at the first sign of trouble, but are harshly punished for this by the regiments Commissar.

Many odd, old superstitions surround the blessing of the main gun are still observed in an attempt to make sure that the crew come back alive. Most crews prefer a Battle Cannon and those who ride an Executioner are said to have a foolhardy (or insane) bravery.

Unstable enough for you? :P Basically they have cooling systems, but they're still not entirely safe.