A vehicle is much harder to destroy than a creature of flesh and blood. Most fighting vehicles are heavily constructed from steel and tough alloys and their hulls are protected by thick armour plates, sloped or angled to deflect shots. Any hits that do penetrate may only cause slight damage or strike non-essential systems. In the case of lighter vehicles, shots may simply pass straight through and out the other side without causing any damage at all! On the other hand, vehicles carry a supply of fuel and ammunition that will blow them apart if they are hit, and however tough the vehicle is, its crew can always be stunned or disabled by hits made against its armoured hide.
Choosing a Vehicle as a Target
When you want to fire at a vehicle treat it like any other unit. One of your units can choose it as a target and must direct all of its shooting at it. Often this means that some of their weapons can't damage it — assume that the other members of the squad are giving covering fire, bringing forward ammunition for heavy weapons or simply keeping their heads down!
When placing a Blast marker or large Blast marker to attack an enemy vehicle, the circle at the centre of the marker must initially be over the vehicle, or one of the vehicles if the target is a unit of vehicles. It may be that models from other units are under the Blast marker and these are also attacked. Flame templates should be placed so as much of the template as possible is over the enemy vehicle without also touching a friendly model.
Roll to hit against vehicles in the same way as against troops. If any hits are scored you then roll for each to see if they penetrate the vehicle's Armour Value, as explained below.
Vehicles can normally be targeted even if they are in close combat with friendly models. Vehicles which have a Weapon Skill characteristic (normally walkers) may not be however.
All vehicles even partially under a Blast marker, large Blast marker or flame template are hit. However if the hole in the middle of a Blast marker or large Blast marker is not over the vehicle then the Strength of the attacking weapon is halved (round fractions up) when working out whether the shot penetrates the vehicle's armour.
Armour Penetration
Once a hit has been scored on a vehicle roll a D6 and add the weapon's Strength characteristic to it. Then compare the total against the vehicle's Armour value.
If the total is less than the vehicle's Armour value, the shot bounces off.
If the total is equal to the vehicle's Armour value, the shot causes a glancing hit.
If the total is greater than the vehicle's Armour value, the shot scores a penetrating hit.
Example: A lascannon shot hits the front of a Space Marine Predator which has an Armour value of 13. Rolling a D6, the player scores a 4 and adds this to the lascannon's Strength of 9 for an Armour Penetration total of 13. This equals the Armour value of the Predator and so inflicts a glancing hit.
Ordnance Weapons
These fire such enormous projectiles that they can smash through armour or hit with such force that the target vehicle's crew are turned to mush. When you roll to penetrate a vehicle's armour with an ordnance weapon you get to roll two D6 instead of one and pick the highest result.
Designers' Note: Against large model vehicles, ordnance shots had a tendency never to miss and it has become the norm to place ordnance Blast markers so that they touch several targets. This will now only be worthwhile against the lightest targets so shooting straight at the target is a good thing.
Vehicle Armour Values
Armour values are different for each type of vehicle. They represent not just the thickness of its armour but also how difficult a target it is because of its size and speed, how tough and numerous its crew are, etc.
Armour values for individual vehicles also vary depending on whether the shot comes from the front, sides or rear.
When a vehicle is hit by a non-barrage weapon with a Blast marker or large Blast marker (including ordnance), the shot is always assumed to strike the vehicle from the direction of the firer regardless of exactly where the marker is placed or scattered to.
In the case of a barrage weapon, the shot is assumed to come from the hole at the centre of the Blast marker. If this is over the vehicle then it is struck from the direction of the firer; if it is behind the vehicle then the shot hits the rear armour, and so on. Remember the rule about the hole in the middle of the Blast marker! A barrage shot landing behind a vehicle may hit the rear armour but will be at half Strength.
Open-Topped Vehicles
Some vehicles are more vulnerable to damage than others because of their lightweight construction and the fact that their crew is exposed to enemy fire. A typical example of an open-topped vehicle is an Ork Wartrak or War Buggy.
Whenever a Damage roll (glancing or penetrating) is made against an open-topped vehicle, add +1 to the Damage result.
Template and Blast marker weapons are particularly dangerous to open-topped vehicles because their crewmen, wheels, engines and other components are not protected against the flames and shrapnel. To represent this, template and Blast marker weapons cause double the normal number of hits against open-topped vehicles (ie, two hits instead of one).
Obscured Targets and Glancing Hits
A vehicle moving especially fast or behind cover, whether natural or artificially generated, will be harder to destroy. Remember that any weapon firing at a vehicle must pick its target spot carefully if it is to be successful, and an obscured target denies the opportunity. The exact circumstances are detailed below.
Skimmers Moving Fast
Moving skimmers are very difficult to hit squarely because they are more agile than other vehicles, and most shots are more likely to 'wing' them instead. To take account of this, any hits that would penetrate a skimmer that moved more than 6" in its Movement phase count as glancing hits instead. In order to qualify as moving more than 6", the skimmer must end its move more than 6" from where it started. Players may not claim their skimmers are 'circling' or moving 4" one way and 3" back. Skimmers are dependent on speed to make the enemy miss, and adequate velocity cannot be attained while circling. If immobilised while moving 6" or less the skimmer lands in its current position.
The Hull Down Rule
Vehicles do not gain benefits from cover in the same way as infantry. However, vehicles can move into protected positions and use terrain to mask their more vulnerable parts in the following way. Any vehicle that is in or behind cover (eg, behind a wall, just beyond the crest of a hill or a wrecked vehicle, in woods or jungle, or something similarly substantial) is considered to be 'hull down'. A hull down vehicle is trying to keep itself out of the line of fire as much as possible, so it counts all penetrating hits as glancing hits instead.
Diagram: "Predator Hull Down" — illustration of a Predator tank in a hull-down position, captioned "glancing hits only".