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Offshoot of this thread.

frankly, this entire conversation is exhausting, because it feels like i can't talk about my army without having to defend one of its core features. brood brothers has been part of the army since its inception. it goes all the way back to RT

the army isn't a significant factor. like, let's be real. it's one of the least popular armies in the game, while guard is one of the most popular. it has a niche and specific playstyle for while brood brothers is able to supplement, but isn't so useful as to break the doors open on playability. when GSC is good, it's usually because of our army rule or the way that we use our units. 70% of the reason why brood brothers exists is flavor, and the other 30% is vehicles. both of these are perfectly fine reasons to keep it around

and regarding flavor, because it's a frequent complaint that GSC shouldn't be allowed to take "named units", those units are only named that way because that's what the kit is called. a cadian can represent anyone in military armor. a krieg model can represent anyone in a gas mask, a catachan anyone making questionable armor choices. if someone wants to use these to add flavor to their army, why should that not be allowed, just because some guard players get pissy that they aren't the supersoldiers they think they are?

Some sort of clue in the first post as to what discussion you're looking for here would be useful...

That’s entirely fair. I mostly made this thread because I am interested in the discussion being held in the linked thread in the first post, but it’s rather off-topic.

There are posters here who are vehemently against Brood Brothers. And I’d like to know, for instance, what they’d prefer it to look like instead-bearing in mind, of course, that it’s an iconic aspect of GSC.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
frankly, this entire conversation is exhausting, because it feels like i can't talk about my army without having to defend one of its core features. brood brothers has been part of the army since its inception. it goes all the way back to RT

the army isn't a significant factor. like, let's be real. it's one of the least popular armies in the game, while guard is one of the most popular. it has a niche and specific playstyle for while brood brothers is able to supplement, but isn't so useful as to break the doors open on playability. when GSC is good, it's usually because of our army rule or the way that we use our units. 70% of the reason why brood brothers exists is flavor, and the other 30% is vehicles. both of these are perfectly fine reasons to keep it around

and regarding flavor, because it's a frequent complaint that GSC shouldn't be allowed to take "named units", those units are only named that way because that's what the kit is called. a cadian can represent anyone in military armor. a krieg model can represent anyone in a gas mask, a catachan anyone making questionable armor choices. if someone wants to use these to add flavor to their army, why should that not be allowed, just because some guard players get pissy that they aren't the supersoldiers they think they are?

Honestly the issue there is more brought up by the fact that GW has decided to break the Infantry Squad into several distinct units for some reason (including the infantry squad), whereas up until what...2 years ago? 1.5 years ago? Whenever the 9th edition Guard codex dropped. Before then, the Conscripts/Infantry Squad/Veterans is what determined what sort of regiment your soldiers were in, as well as how you kitted them out. In the 3.5 dex you manually customized your regiment's origins etc, in 5th you had a smattering of special characters to denote your region of space of origin, and in the 8th book you had named homeworlds and then the custom build a background stuff in psychic awakening.

Personally I love the idea of Brood Brothers, though feel it should be catered more around what you generally would see in a planetary defense force. Honestly can never remember what is and is not currently allowed as it has changed by edition and I don't know if the allowances changed with any of the dataslates. From the original 10th index I'd say the only thing I'd add to the ban list would be Baneblades etc, as already most of the elite stuff like Scions are already off the table. On the flip side, something like Preachers would be fluff wise really fun to allow for Brood Brothers, to denote a corrupted priest leading their flock.

I kind of feel the limitation of Brood Brothers is that they do not benefit from various special faction rules, plus not allowing them to be your warlord is kind of sad - means fluffwise it is harder to put the focus on the corrupted PDF unit with some cultists ready to pop up from inconvenient areas etc. Hopefully one of the detachments Genestealer Cults get will be Brood Brother focused.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
frankly, this entire conversation is exhausting, because it feels like i can't talk about my army without having to defend one of its core features. brood brothers has been part of the army since its inception. it goes all the way back to RT

Which has never been in contention. The contention, which you have continually tried to brush off with the following commentary about the GSC not being "significant to affecting Guard", is that you've been given far, far too much access to the Guard arsenal.

Tyranids: 2E, per Lexicanum(I don't have it so can't confirm!) lists the following for GSC:

Brood Brothers, right there, as a unit.

Like I've continually harped upon and suggested as a way better solution that would actually let GSC be addressed properly.

the army isn't a significant factor. like, let's be real. it's one of the least popular armies in the game, while guard is one of the most popular.

lolwut? Are you really trying to say that GSC haven't been popular?

it has a niche and specific playstyle for while brood brothers is able to supplement, but isn't so useful as to break the doors open on playability. when GSC is good, it's usually because of our army rule or the way that we use our units.

Except when it's not and requires an entire FAQ for Guard just to address your silliness like in The Greater Good.

70% of the reason why brood brothers exists is flavor, and the other 30% is vehicles. both of these are perfectly fine reasons to keep it around

And yet it was good enough for 2E and 7E for the Brood Brothers components to actually be in the faction itself, rather than you getting to gank flavor & function from a whole other army.

and regarding flavor, because it's a frequent complaint that GSC shouldn't be allowed to take "named units", those units are only named that way because that's what the kit is called.

They're "named that way" because it's a unique unit, distinctive from the basic Infantry Squad.

a cadian can represent anyone in military armor. a krieg model can represent anyone in a gas mask, a catachan anyone making questionable armor choices. if someone wants to use these to add flavor to their army, why should that not be allowed,

Why should it be allowed? If someone just wants to use them to add flavor to their army, they can do what Guard players were told to do for multiple editions:
Use whatever you want; it doesn't matter because an Infantry Squad has the same statline no matter what.

just because some guard players get pissy that they aren't the supersoldiers they think they are?

Maybe, just maybe, it's because for the first time since the frigging doctrines codex Guard players' choices actually matter? We actually have choices again for different types of units that aren't just "Veterans, Scions, Conscripts, or Effectively Conscripts with Sergeants+HWTs".



I've said, repeatedly, that the best solution is not to continue allowing this dumpsterfire of a rule to exist. It's too harmful, whether you want to admit it or not, to both factions.

The best solution is to bring an actual listing of Brood Brothers items into the codex and work from there.

Starting with a setup like:
-HQ(or repurpose the Primus+Nexos to work for both GSC & Brood Brothers in terms of lore/buffs)
-Troop(Brood Brothers)
-Elite(Carapace Armored bodyguard unit)
-Heavy Support(LRBT and mountable weapons)

From a purely design standpoint, it seems kind of lame- or at least not living up to potential- if part of an army is just another army copy-pasted. Brood Brothers are an iconic element of GSC, but there's no reason their rules representation has to be as perfunctory as it is.

My ideal model would be something like the Renegades & Heretics list. It included a bunch of units from the regular Guard codex, but with R&H-specific twists that made them feel different and play differently.

So I'd like to see Brood Brothers be direct entries in the GSC codex, and lean into the idea of them being part of a local PDF, rather than Guard proper. A little more second-rate equipment, a little less Baneblades and priceless relic plasma cannons. And then shape their abilities to complement and be part of GSC, rather than a separate force tacked on.

(Also, I'd also like to see Chaos renegades and Gue'Vesa get the same treatment)

Renegades have already gotten a bit of that treatment in the form of the Blooded(which started as a Kill Team), Catbarf. They could definitely use more.

 JNAProductions wrote:
That’s entirely fair. I mostly made this thread because I am interested in the discussion being held in the linked thread in the first post, but it’s rather off-topic.

There are posters here who are vehemently against Brood Brothers. And I’d like to know, for instance, what they’d prefer it to look like instead-bearing in mind, of course, that it’s an iconic aspect of GSC.

Part of the issue is that you seem to have decided that me not liking the rules and just how much depth into my faction it gives you equals me "vehemently not liking Brood Brothers".

There has to be some limitation. There has to be. And not the joke of one that they've given the faction via the rules, where it's 25% of your total points and no named heroes, Ratlings, Ogryn, Commissars(a common vector for GSC infiltration, btw!), Preachers(another vector), or Scions isn't it.

Because right now, the Brood Brothers concept isn't making a whole lot of sense considering a faction that puts entire planets to the torch for suspected taint from Chaos let alone Tyranids. As much as Etherium wants to take shots at Guard players for the whole "wanting professional soldiers to be treated as such", is it really that much better to have one faction which basically can just take over the majority of the setting with a cheap parlor trick like hypnotism?

 catbarf wrote:
From a purely design standpoint, it seems kind of lame- or at least not living up to potential- if part of an army is just another army copy-pasted. Brood Brothers are an iconic element of GSC, but there's no reason their rules representation has to be as perfunctory as it is.

My ideal model would be something like the Renegades & Heretics list. It included a bunch of units from the regular Guard codex, but with R&H-specific twists that made them feel different and play differently.

So I'd like to see Brood Brothers be direct entries in the GSC codex, and lean into the idea of them being part of a local PDF, rather than Guard proper. A little more second-rate equipment, a little less Baneblades and priceless relic plasma cannons. And then shape their abilities to complement and be part of GSC, rather than a separate force tacked on.

(Also, I'd also like to see Chaos renegades and Gue'Vesa get the same treatment)

Agreed. We need a fair and lore accurate treatment for Renegades and Heretics, Brood Brothers,and Gue'Vessa. Unfortunately, such things seem to be beyond the goals of the current 40k rules writers.

I do think that when the rumoured GSC Brood Brother Kill Team drops it will be added. I don't know if it will replace the existing BB rules, or be added to them.

I think a replacement would be more interesting- it could, for example, benefit from GSC faction traits and detachment rules, as it would be a GSC unit. It could perhaps participate more meaningfully in the army.

My personal solution is campaign play- GSC have to steal it, infect it or convert it. If they do that in game, they can add the unit to their roster. I'm starting with nothing but purestrains, and every human I take out becomes a BB on my roster. Once I've got enough humans to make a unit, they can be fielded.

I wonder how much easier BB unit restrictions would be to figure out if GW had properly included the old WHFB Core/Special/Rare designations into 40k codices.

Note for those who never played: One could roughly map the three onto Common/Uncommon/Rare items from RPGs vis a vis how powerful/common the items in each category were. 25+% of the points in the army had to be spent on Core units (eg, Skeletons or Infantry Squads), up to 50% could be spent on Special (eg, Black Knights or Leman Russ Battletanks), and up to 25% could be spent on Rare (eg, Zombie Dragons or superheavies).

I'm not sure GW would have ported them over, even as basic keywords - I haven't been following too closely, but it seems like 10e is doubling down on the "take what you want" side of things, and they'd almost certainly muck up what goes where. That said, it would be trivial to just use Core/Special/Rare as a guide for what could be taken as BB and in what quantity.

Also, I'm not sure that putting BB entirely into the GSC 'dex would work out. I like it as an idea, but I want to say we've already been through this with other intercodex units, and the general issue has been that the two are rarely kept in sync by GW (meaning that there's often a power disparity between two versions of what is supposed to be the same unit). I'd suspect that's why GW made BB just pull from the IG 'dex instead.

The core of the Brood Brothers issue is that GW wants to continue to allow Brood Brothers to exist but also wants to keep unit entries locked to kits they produce. The only kits that they produce more then one entry in one codex are mostly Astartes vehicles.

Currently, the only such unit is the Brood Brothers kits consisting of the old Cadian Infantry Squad with the Genestealer Cults upgrade sprue. That's not enough to cover what they want a GSC army to have available to them, hence the index Brood Brothers rule that allows a limited value and selection of Astra Militarum units to be used in your army. Those units lose out on having an army or detachment rule, so the expanded availability comes at a considerable cost.

I feel like this thread is going to be Kan against the World
I don’t see the issue at all, if anything there should be much more like it to show the setting is more than Space Marines.
Gue'vesa, Renegades, Frateris Militia, Knight House militia- give them all access to some basic Guard units.

I agree that having some brood brothers options in the codex to help with army synergy would be better/smoother than the ham fisted implementation they have now.

I disagree there are no limitations at present however, whilst a wide selection of the range is available, it's still only a small chunk of the GSC force, lacks the required rules to integrate and is generally going to be a sub-optimal choice (which is largely backed up by GSC lists at events).

As to the named regiments section, if there are enough Cadian shock troops/death korps of Krieg /Catachan jungle fighters to miraculously appear in every battle on every planet at any given time simultaneously, then there are clearly enough to pick up a stealers kiss. There's fluff precedent for a valhallan regiment getting infected whilst on duty as well in the Cain series.

If anything, it's the guard codex who gets it wrong for having named core units instead of allowing infantry squads to become various unit stereotypes without the planetary ties. GSC range is too slim to get by without the assist, but it should be in their book imo.

Just a callout to the 2nd ed rules.

As part of their 25% support limit they could take chaos allies, and vehicles chosen from a list of :
Land raiders
Rhinos
Predators
Leman Russ battle tank
Chimera
Imperial guard land speeders.

Crews replaces with brood brothers with laspistols and flack armor.

So it was more then just the units listed earlier in the thread.

I always found it amusing that in 2e the GSC could get Imperial Guard landspeeders - and when the IG codex came out the Guard lost that unit option.

We always joked that the GSC stole them all.

I'd probably prefer to have an explicitly curated range of units which are in the GSC codex than what is functionally just allies rules with all the slightly wonkiness such brings.

Although I feel this inevitably just leads to arguments over what is in and what is out. I feel GW are reasonably happy to sell Baneblades to GSC players if they want to buy them.

I'm not convinced there's evidence Guard are nerfed "because some units can appear in GSC lists". It could happen - but I don't think balance is nearly forensic enough for that, and the 25% limitation gets in the way.

 catbarf wrote:
From a purely design standpoint, it seems kind of lame- or at least not living up to potential- if part of an army is just another army copy-pasted. Brood Brothers are an iconic element of GSC, but there's no reason their rules representation has to be as perfunctory as it is.

My ideal model would be something like the Renegades & Heretics list. It included a bunch of units from the regular Guard codex, but with R&H-specific twists that made them feel different and play differently.

So I'd like to see Brood Brothers be direct entries in the GSC codex, and lean into the idea of them being part of a local PDF, rather than Guard proper. A little more second-rate equipment, a little less Baneblades and priceless relic plasma cannons. And then shape their abilities to complement and be part of GSC, rather than a separate force tacked on.

(Also, I'd also like to see Chaos renegades and Gue'Vesa get the same treatment)

Honestly speaking we can probably just end the thread with this statement right here.

Renegades and Heretics was great and while I don't play Heresy the Militia list there is one of the most interesting army lists I've seen GW create recently. Just give the people who did those army lists Guard, Traitor Guard, Brood Brothers/Genestealer Cults and Gue'vasa and go to town. I can see Traitor Guard going down the old route of having charismatic leadership being the driving force of the army and having dramatic shifts in builds based on who leads it. Meanwhile Guard instead of picking customization things from the leader, you would probably pick homeworld type, regiment type (probably adding/removing Battleline etc), combat doctrine and general kit. I can see Genestealer Cults going a similar way to Renegades and Heretics, taking a military leader type as warlord if you want to focus more on Brood Brothers and expanding the equipment and gear you can take with them, or a Magus or Patriarch might bring more focus on the mutants etc (though all facets of the army would have some levels of both).

Tyel wrote:
I'd probably prefer to have an explicitly curated range of units which are in the GSC codex than what is functionally just allies rules with all the slightly wonkiness such brings.

Although I feel this inevitably just leads to arguments over what is in and what is out. I feel GW are reasonably happy to sell Baneblades to GSC players if they want to buy them.

I'm not convinced there's evidence Guard are nerfed "because some units can appear in GSC lists". It could happen - but I don't think balance is nearly forensic enough for that, and the 25% limitation gets in the way.

there aren't enough GSC players for GW to factor us into guard's balance. it's a niche army

I think the current setup is fine. There is a discussion to be had about how lore accurate some options are (Baneblades, Kasrkin), but I don't really mind their inclusion into the options GCs have.
One regular opponent of mine has borrowed my Baneblade once, and we included the flight to recapture this priceless relic into our ongoing campaign.

I find it sad that GW has doubled down on limiting allies that much, I really liked to build diverse forces in 8th edition and now a lot of my models are unusable without some rules modifications

yeah, i'm a big fan of allies as well. we shouldn't be taking them away, we should be expanding this. AOS has the right idea for how to handle the idea, so we know it can work

Long ago, before the oceans of Kirby's greed drank WHFB, there was space for armies made up of a number of smaller mini-armies. We called the hallowed, twofold tomes that describe two such armies thus: Witch Hunters and Daemon Hunters.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Long ago, before the oceans of Kirby's greed drank WHFB, there was space for armies made up of a number of smaller mini-armies. We called the hallowed, twofold tomes that describe two such armies thus: Witch Hunters and Daemon Hunters.

Yeah, but the -Hunters army lists and their inducted units were a mess.

yeah as much as i'm a fan of allies and inquisitors being able to do weird things, the hunter books didn't work great. and now that two of the armies within have gone on to find great success on their own, i don't think such a thing is really necessary

I only ever used the Witch Hunter book, and I didn't find any issues with their rules for inducted units/ allies etc.

That said, I don't want to go back- I want GK and DW to continue as factions in their own right, but I think that Agent detachments should exist, and I think that Inquisition detachments should work as allied detachments to their chambers militant. Agents use Agent Detachment rules, Chamber uses their detachment rules. Sorta like 8th ed soup used to work- but in this case it only happens with Ordos and their respective Chambers, which would limit the ability the scope of multi-detachment armies.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I'd probably prefer to have an explicitly curated range of units which are in the GSC codex than what is functionally just allies rules with all the slightly wonkiness such brings.

Although I feel this inevitably just leads to arguments over what is in and what is out. I feel GW are reasonably happy to sell Baneblades to GSC players if they want to buy them.

I'm not convinced there's evidence Guard are nerfed "because some units can appear in GSC lists". It could happen - but I don't think balance is nearly forensic enough for that, and the 25% limitation gets in the way.

there aren't enough GSC players for GW to factor us into guard's balance. it's a niche army

You keep making that claim - got any evidence to back the claim up?

I think the issue with Brood Brothers is that GSC on its own lacks variety and options. They have something like eleventy-billion character options, and like three infantry choices. It feels like the army kinda needs Brood Brothers to work properly.

So, it's a feature, not a bug.

 Dysartes wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I'd probably prefer to have an explicitly curated range of units which are in the GSC codex than what is functionally just allies rules with all the slightly wonkiness such brings.

Although I feel this inevitably just leads to arguments over what is in and what is out. I feel GW are reasonably happy to sell Baneblades to GSC players if they want to buy them.

I'm not convinced there's evidence Guard are nerfed "because some units can appear in GSC lists". It could happen - but I don't think balance is nearly forensic enough for that, and the 25% limitation gets in the way.

there aren't enough GSC players for GW to factor us into guard's balance. it's a niche army

You keep making that claim - got any evidence to back the claim up?

according to statcheck, in 10th edition so far, GSC has comprised 2% of tournament attendance, with only SW, drukhari, AdMech, and DW below it (and this includes the period of time when GSC had a 60% win rate and thus was a tournament darling; not even that could save us). compare to Guard being the 7th most popular army for the edition


and looking at statcheck's stats for 9th edition (a larger period of time with more variety of metagames), it's not any better. GSC is technically 10th from the bottom, but that includes each of the space marine codex chapters. if we take those out of the equation, it's only fifth from the bottom ahead of BT (a new faction), AdMech, WE (a new faction), and DW. once again, this has IG as being the 7th most popular faction

I'd be careful about using tournament data, which often tends to be a reflection of meta power.

Dark Eldar are I think a "niche" faction. Indeed, I'd say only the wisest and bravest players play such a complex and deep army. Unless its 2021, and DE are the best faction in the game. And what would you know? Suddenly every other tournament player seems to have some Dark Eldar down the back of the sofa.

With that said, I think GSC have things that tell against them being popular. They tend to be kind of Horde - which brings its negatives. The resulting army is expensive, hard to transport and time consuming to paint. Its also kind of spammy - which may bother some players in a way other factions don't have to be. I mean I've dabbeld in GSC - but can I be bothered to get say 80 Neophytes or 50 Acolytes or something that I'd need to get up to 2k points? The answer is no.

I'd always wanted a GSC army and was consistently put off by the effort in models and paint. The only reason I have an army now is because I found a nice army already assembled and painted on ebay.

It's not just the number of models, but the fact that they're pretty individualized and detailed, making them more taxing to batch-paint. Tyranids I can batch paint easily, GSCs much less so.