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Lots of lasguns generate buckets of dice. Buckets of dice kill Monstrous creatures. Its ok to wound on a 6 when you're getting 45 chances to wound after rolling 90 'to hit' dice.

Short of playing against T7+ monsters and FNP units with decent armour, its just vehicles that rifles can't deal with.

And for those- plasma rifles are a thing, and meltaguns are there behind ablative riflemen. Better hope your opponent brought enough rifles to deal with the 40 guys infront of your meltaguns and meltabomb sergeants.

Rifles have a place in 40k- its in massed groups in front of officers shouting loudly.

 Ginsu33 wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:
The rifle is used by one man, to kill another. There has never been a greater force equilizer in the history of mankind. One must use his brain and his brawn to maximize his killing potential. With walkers, monsterous creatures, tanks, skimmers, and heavily armored supermen, the rifleman just seems outmatched.

Currently the rifleman cannot use his brain in accordance with his brawn because the flanking of an enemy is ineffectual on the result of an attack. Positioning is in large, irrelevant in regards to you and the enemy. Furthermore the taking out of other infantrymen with the rifle is widely inefficient given the effectiveness and ubiquity of more specialized weaponry.

This saddens me greatly as the triumph of one squad over the other should be representative of the squads capabilities in the expertise of their bodies and minds, and not the quality of their weaponry.

Yep.... pretty much what sucks about 40k right now. Imperial Guard is just D-Day running up against Nazi machineguns, without a fleet behind you and limited to the amount of men you have in your army case...

What's funny is that in the 3rd ed book, you could take conscripts, which iirc had a rule that allowed them to be redeployed when wiped out.
So back then you could, in fact, re-enact D day with the guard.

Nids had a similar rule called without number.

I liked the Andy Chambers era of 40k. Kind of miss it :(

"Realistically," the rifleman doesn't do much killing in modern warfare, to my knowledge. His main job is pinning the enemy and calling in artillery and airstrikes, which is what do the killing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"Realistically," a pure light infantry regiment shouldn't be killing much. That's not their job. Realistically.


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 Sledgehammer wrote:


They are not the hammer, they are the arrow that wounds the soldier allowing the hammer to more easily smash armor.

Which is another way of saying that they don't kill stuff. The hammer does.

 =Angel= wrote:
Lots of lasguns generate buckets of dice. Buckets of dice kill Monstrous creatures. Its ok to wound on a 6 when you're getting 45 chances to wound after rolling 90 'to hit' dice.

Short of playing against T7+ monsters and FNP units with decent armour, its just vehicles that rifles can't deal with.

There are lots of MC's and non-MC units that rifles cannot adequately deal with. A FNP'd Riptide is going to require 540 Lasgun shots on average to put down, far more than anyone is ever going to be able to bring to bear against it. 6 model Canoptek Harvest Decurion Wraith squads are going to require almost 900 Lasgun shots to kill. If you want to get into the realm of the even more ridiculous, if you get something like a kitted out superfriends TWC deathstar with psychic support sporting Veil of Time, Invisibility, and Endurance, and you're looking at ~25-30 *thousand* Lasgun shots to kill that unit. To kill a 10man squad of basic Necron Warriors in a Decurion, you need nearly *300* Lasgun shots. Stuff has just gotten way out of hand for the likes of the Lasgun, the scale of the game has simply bloated too much

Buff them with your Rending order and FRFSRF and suddenly that Riptide becomes a bit less tough...

 Ashiraya wrote:
Buff them with your Rending order and FRFSRF and suddenly that Riptide becomes a bit less tough...

We have a rending order?

Also, I'm pretty sure two orders can't be issued to the same unit, so it'd be one or the other.

I managed to kill quite a few things by throwing a mountain of dice at my friend from FRFSRF from 20 conscripts. Only thing I couldn't deal with were Crimson Hunters and the unbalanced Wraithknight...

Tempestus Scions have a Rending order, but not normal IG, and sadly, either way, a unit cannot receive two orders in the same turn

Oh, I see.

The Militarum Tempestus do . Technically it gives their hotshot weapons sniper, rather than rending, and it's quite amusing the first time they ventilate a Wraithknight with it.

I have been drafting some stuff for a killteam though. My problem is that all riflemen do in 40k is shoot. Bounding can't be done. Suppression is impossible. Flanking serve little purpose. There really is no reason to have a light maneuverable infantry regiment when moving up on an enemy is more of a detrement than a benefit.

Whilst 40k is a bad simulation of a 'war' given everything's close proximity, there are ideas that work well. The problem is that they've been overrun in 'shiny new model syndrome'.

I would seriously consider Horus Heresy games, as it maintains them rather well:


a) Monstrous Creatures are fairly rare. Walkers are common, and arguably even more powerful than in 40k - see the Leviathan Dreadnought but they have downsides (such as vulnerability to flanking, as you noted)

b) Ignores Cover is fairly rare*. That means that one of the classic roles of infantry - being dug into cover and being a bugger to dig out - is important. Especially with city-fighting rules which focus over controlling ruins.

c) Rather than 'objective secured' stuff, only non-vehicle troops are scoring. There are a few non-troop units which get implacable advance (making them scoring) but these are invariably medium and heavy infantry - like Veteran Tactical Squads and Legion Terminators. Taking and holding ground being the main job of infantry squads seems right.

d) With relatively few 'variant force organisations' pretty much every army has at least a pair of tactical squads (or equivalent). Which means you must therefore have a useful target for bolters to be shooting at.

* Or if not, it's at least reassuringly expensive.

But at the same time you have tanks like the Typhon and entire armies made up out of Dreadnoughts. Not to mention the support squads with flamers.....
I have faced 30K armies with my Guard. It is not fun

 Sledgehammer wrote:
The rifle is used by one man, to kill another. There has never been a greater force equilizer in the history of mankind. One must use his brain and his brawn to maximize his killing potential. With walkers, monsterous creatures, tanks, skimmers, and heavily armored supermen, the rifleman just seems outmatched.

Currently the rifleman cannot use his brain in accordance with his brawn because the flanking of an enemy is ineffectual on the result of an attack. Positioning is in large, irrelevant in regards to you and the enemy. Furthermore the taking out of other infantrymen with the rifle is widely inefficient given the effectiveness and ubiquity of more specialized weaponry.

This saddens me greatly as the triumph of one squad over the other should be representative of the squads capabilities in the expertise of their bodies and minds, and not the quality of their weaponry.

It is truly sad the abuses the Imperium has inflicted on its soldiers. The only place for a rifleman in the Imperial Guard is as fodder. You die by the billions every day, often for lack of ammunition or food, but often by monsters you have no hope of killing.

There is, however, a power rising in the east that values the individual human soldier. The Tau Empire brings with it the pulse rifle, the finest weapon of war fielded by rank and file troops. It is able to destroy lightly-armored vehicles outright with a well-placed shot and outranges even the bolt weapons used by humanity's elite Space Marines. Nowhere can the rifleman find a better home than under the banner of the Greater Good!

 Sledgehammer wrote:
With walkers, monsterous creatures, tanks, skimmers, and heavily armored supermen, the rifleman just seems outmatched.

Two words: Untold Billions.

You'll get this same reply over and over. One on one or squad on one or platoon on one, sure, riflemen are outmatched. You think about the whole concept of IG though, while one platoon would be outmatched, two you break even, three you now overmatch the XYZ. And the idea of IG is you have three platoons. Sure you'll lose 2 of them, but that leaves you with the 3rd as a battle tested spine to stiffen the 2 platoons of replacements you'll get. Add to that, in the IoM, people are plentiful. Chapters may go through hundreds of aspirants just to get a scout. The IG kills no few of their own in training. Harsh worlds where precious resources are mined go through them as fast as transports can bring replacements.

Riflemen work just fine when you can sling regiments by the hundreds into the grinder.

IMO the tabletop game just does a poor job with points pricing to depict the IG as they are depicted in the fluff.

Another point is that 40k is SUPPOSED to represent a company level engagement with 50-100 infantry and supporting vehicles. (designers notes 3rd ed)
Keyword: Supporting- it was never supposed to be about monstrous battle engines. They had a game for that.

GMC and Superheavies have no place in a game of riflemen, not the other way round.

 master of ordinance wrote:
But at the same time you have tanks like the Typhon and entire armies made up out of Dreadnoughts. Not to mention the support squads with flamers.....
I have faced 30K armies with my Guard. It is not fun

A whole army made out of Dreadnoughts is pretty much the worst 30k can muster, and they rapidly feed you VPs as they die.

Then you remember that 40k can muster an army of Wraithknights...

 =Angel= wrote:
Another point is that 40k is SUPPOSED to represent a company level engagement with 50-100 infantry and supporting vehicles. (designers notes 3rd ed)
Keyword: Supporting- it was never supposed to be about monstrous battle engines. They had a game for that.

GMC and Superheavies have no place in a game of riflemen, not the other way round.

^ This.
The 40k I played in 4th ed was drastically different to the 40k today.
GW lost sight of what 40k was meant to be.

Man, I like monstrous battle engines and tank companies.

Rather than having "lost sight", perhaps they changed it? Most of the designers frlm 3rd Edition aren't even at GW anymore.

 =Angel= wrote:
Another point is that 40k is SUPPOSED to represent a company level engagement with 50-100 infantry and supporting vehicles. (designers notes 3rd ed)
Keyword: Supporting- it was never supposed to be about monstrous battle engines. They had a game for that.

GMC and Superheavies have no place in a game of riflemen, not the other way round.

Yes, this is what I've been saying. My infantry should be proficient in whatever their task is. (In my case ambushing and flanking other enemy infantry). The vehicles are there to support them in their task and not the other way around.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Man, I like monstrous battle engines and tank companies.

Rather than having "lost sight", perhaps they changed it? Most of the designers frlm 3rd Edition aren't even at GW anymore.

The thing is there was already a game system called Epic that had exactly that, and there was a supplement for 40k called Apocalypse that was balanced for that sort of combat.
There was no need to merge apoc and standard 40k. There was no need to introduce SHV, GC and D weapons in sub 3000 points.

 Sledgehammer wrote:
My infantry should be proficient in whatever their task is. (In my case ambushing and flanking other enemy infantry). The vehicles are there to support them in their task and not the other way around.

Well, my infantry still is the main power in my army (SoB). They're still good at what they do, but I do have to play very aggressively and one single unlucky Outflank or other mistake in positioning will cost me another squad.

Ofc, I use infantry because that's what I have. Other more frequently updated armies have better options that make their infantry obsolete at the points cost. Just look at the marines, for example - the only way to make them bring the massive amount of battle brothers a marine force should have is to give them free transports via the Gladius!

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Man, I like monstrous battle engines and tank companies.

Rather than having "lost sight", perhaps they changed it? Most of the designers frlm 3rd Edition aren't even at GW anymore.

The thing is there was already a game system called Epic that had exactly that, and there was a supplement called Apocalypse that was balanced for that sort of combat.
There was no need to merge apoc and standard 40k.

I didn't like epic. 6mm Baneblades were basically tiny blobs of metal, devoid of any character or meaningful detail, and had weapons modeled on them that weren't even in the rules. 28mm WYSIWYG Baneblades are awesome, and fun to paint; easily weathered and detailed.

And I didn't like having apocalypse be the purview of large tanks because it was too big. Why bring a Baneblade when you could bring a Titan? The only Apoc games I ever played were team affairs larger than 3000 points. Why not a 2000 point game with a Baneblade? I am sure there was one out there supporting an Imperial infantry or mech company. Why not a Titan at 1250 points, representing the scouting party and its Skitarii ranging out in front of a larger Titan off the field?

And what if your opponent does not have a SHV, or sufficient AT to take it down?
What if its a GC, which are considerably harder to take down?
It encourages list tailoring, as you have to design the army list specifically to counter it. The game needs less list dependency, not more.

What about D weapons? What is to stop you from deleting a squad a turn with your SHV? At high points level a single squad isn't such a big deal, but losing entire squad at once at 1250 points? That's pretty harsh.

Like, if the strength of the SHV scaled with the size of the game, and if D weapons weren't allowed then maybe. Atm though its pretty silly.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
And what if your opponent does not have a SHV, or sufficient AT to take it down?
What if its a GC, which are considerably harder to take down?
It encourages list tailoring, as you have to design the army list specifically to counter it. The game needs less list dependency, not more.

What about D weapons? What is to stop you from deleting a squad a turn with your SHV? At high points level a single squad isn't such a big deal, but losing entire squad at once at 1250 points? That's pretty harsh.

Like, if the strength of the SHV scaled with the size of the game, and if D weapons weren't allowed then maybe. Atm though its pretty silly.

If my opponent lacks sufficient AT to kill a Baneblade, my opponent also would have had problems with a Leman Russ squadron - same number of hull points, same armour thickness on the front and sides. You don't need a SHV of your own to have enough Anti-Tank. Gargantuan creatures are a mechanical issue, getting things like Feel No Pain and Armour Saves that SHVs don't have, and yes, they would require rebalancing - not categorical banning.

What about D weapons? They wound on a 2+, and a 6 ignores all saves. That really isn't that bad depending on the AP of the weapon. It's mostly for killing superheavies, which you say is a problem. D weapons hardly delete a squad a turn if there is cover or it is not AP1 or 2. I know very few superheavies that can outright delete a squad a turn any more than a battletank squadron could.

D weapons really aren't that bad, trust me, I use them routinely.

Aren't most D weapons AP2? I rarely see a D weapon that cannot ignore armor saves.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
And what if your opponent does not have a SHV, or sufficient AT to take it down?
What if its a GC, which are considerably harder to take down?
It encourages list tailoring, as you have to design the army list specifically to counter it. The game needs less list dependency, not more.

What about D weapons? What is to stop you from deleting a squad a turn with your SHV? At high points level a single squad isn't such a big deal, but losing entire squad at once at 1250 points? That's pretty harsh.

Like, if the strength of the SHV scaled with the size of the game, and if D weapons weren't allowed then maybe. Atm though its pretty silly.

If my opponent lacks sufficient AT to kill a Baneblade, my opponent also would have had problems with a Leman Russ squadron - same number of hull points, same armour thickness on the front and sides. You don't need a SHV of your own to have enough Anti-Tank. Gargantuan creatures are a mechanical issue, getting things like Feel No Pain and Armour Saves that SHVs don't have, and yes, they would require rebalancing - not categorical banning.

What about D weapons? They wound on a 2+, and a 6 ignores all saves. That really isn't that bad depending on the AP of the weapon. It's mostly for killing superheavies, which you say is a problem. D weapons hardly delete a squad a turn if there is cover or it is not AP1 or 2. I know very few superheavies that can outright delete a squad a turn any more than a battletank squadron could.

D weapons really aren't that bad, trust me, I use them routinely.

The D flamer is total gak but its sorta an oddity for D weapons (and I don't know what ground up finecast resin they where snorting when they thought that was a good idea). Most of the single shot D weapons are manageable but it really stinks for AV14 as it basically bypasses everything AV14 offers and treats your Land Raider or Battlewagon front armor like its a Trukk or Land Speed (the speeder is better off as it can jink). Vehicles currently suffer and the increase in Str D makes them even more irrelevant.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Aren't most D weapons AP2? I rarely see a D weapon that cannot ignore armor saves.

Yep.
Anyhow, it is not D weapons that are the problem. Units like the triple Vindicator Line Breaker or the Typhon that can put down massive S10 AP1 10/7" blasts that ignore cover are the real threat. if my opponent brings these I am royally boned because no matter what I do he will remove big portions (read: several entire sections) of my army a turn.

Im going to reiterate a previous statement and say that I think Troops will be in a much much better place if they got rid of Obsec tied to formations and such like it is now and simply went to Troops=Obsec (troops only was a bit restrictive).

Troops should be the bread and butter and even if they arent able to kill they are the ones holding the objectives. They are designed like a swiss army knife and should be used in that capacity as well. I somehow believe it is hard for an insane chaos dreadnought to hold an objective unless he was there by himself and not dealing with any enemies at all.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Aren't most D weapons AP2? I rarely see a D weapon that cannot ignore armor saves.

Yep.
Anyhow, it is not D weapons that are the problem. Units like the triple Vindicator Line Breaker or the Typhon that can put down massive S10 AP1 10/7" blasts that ignore cover are the real threat. if my opponent brings these I am royally boned because no matter what I do he will remove big portions (read: several entire sections) of my army a turn.

The triple vindicator thing falls apart if you get a single shaken result. You can't penetrate av 11 once?


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 generalchaos34 wrote:
Im going to reiterate a previous statement and say that I think Troops will be in a much much better place if they got rid of Obsec tied to formations and such like it is now and simply went to Troops=Obsec (troops only was a bit restrictive).

Troops should be the bread and butter and even if they arent able to kill they are the ones holding the objectives. They are designed like a swiss army knife and should be used in that capacity as well. I somehow believe it is hard for an insane chaos dreadnought to hold an objective unless he was there by himself and not dealing with any enemies at all.

Troops are now a tax unless you are eldar.

Don't vindicators have 24" range as well? Most armies can outrange them.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Don't vindicators have 24" range as well? Most armies can outrange them.

Yes. I quit using vindis a long time ago. And mine are fast!