And Baneblade. GW has an amazing 8-in-1 kit combining the original 2-in-1 Baneblade / Hellhammer with the extra sprues for the 6-in-1 Shadowsword / Stormlord / ... kit.

There is no way IG don't get the Baneblade in their next Codex.

As much as I liked Doctrines, I don't think a modified port over of the doctrines from the older codex is likely. GW only wants rules that have accompanying models and many of the techy upgrades require something other than GWs current plastic kits.

 aka_mythos wrote:
As much as I liked Doctrines, I don't think a modified port over of the doctrines from the older codex is likely. GW only wants rules that have accompanying models and many of the techy upgrades require something other than GWs current plastic kits.

If anything I think they will make them formation based.

 Anpu42 wrote:

>Rank and File (If all Models of a unit are in base contact with each other they may fire Over-watch at full BS)
>Formation March ( If all Models of a unit are in base contact with each other they may Fire one extra shot with Non-Heavy Weapons)

this plus first rank fire order. Non shall live.

 Sledgehammer wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
As much as I liked Doctrines, I don't think a modified port over of the doctrines from the older codex is likely. GW only wants rules that have accompanying models and many of the techy upgrades require something other than GWs current plastic kits.

If anything I think they will make them formation based.

That makes a lot of sense.

What I want but probably won't get:

- Platoon doctrines.

- Infinite ranged vox casters (it is a radio and will add some much needed flexibility to infantry placement.)

- Lasguns infiite range (it is a laser..)

- Veteran Leman Russes.

- Heavy plasma gun team.

- Hydra with intercept.

- Trench fortifitation.

- Rough riders replaced with dino riders or, failing that, motorcross bikes.

- Bayonet upgrade?

- Mines.

- Company standard isn't useless.

- Themed detachmwnts, eg: artillery only detachment, russ only detachment, infantry only deatcahment, etc, ect...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also a Vortex missile upgradefor the Deathstrike with the pie plate staying on the board after detonation and it continues to move around for the remainder of the game based on scatter dice.

I would like to see sentinels (armored and scout), bullgryns, ogryns, rough riders, chimeras, hell hounds all become more cost efficient. Either make them stronger or, keeping with the motif of the army, make them cheaper in points. they are not worth what we pay for them. really, just make the units in the codex way more cost efficient. These are meant to be the most expendable warriors in the 40k universe which means cheap cheap cheap and very few to no special rules. give me a reason to buy the models lol.

I expect them to cut storm troopers and taurox out of the codex as they are their own codex now just as inquisition became their own army. could be wrong here, but I could see it happening.

It will never happen, but bring back Marbo!

Would like to see a veteran driver upgrade to the chimera. Only for Vet Squads. Makes the BS for the chimera 4.

Smotejob wrote:

I expect them to cut storm troopers and taurox out of the codex as they are their own codex now just as inquisition became their own army. could be wrong here, but I could see it happening.

They had the opportunity to do that the last time and didn't do it. That's not to say they wouldn't do it the next update, though. Brave new GW world and all...

martin74 wrote:Would like to see a veteran driver upgrade to the chimera. Only for Vet Squads. Makes the BS for the chimera 4.

That would actually be an interesting upgrade for any vehicle. Veteran sentinels would be an autotake, IMO.

Would like to see a veteran driver upgrade to the chimera. Only for Vet Squads. Makes the BS for the chimera 4.

I have a homebrewed character that lets me upgrade the crews of my tanks to veterans with +1 BS for 10 points. It is something that needs doing IMO and GW need to fix it.

Personally, I'd like to see some sort of buff to the lasgun. e.g. an order that lets you halve your shots, but get extra strength based on the number of models firing.

In an edition where the entire enemy army can be AV10 (or better), or T7+ MCs, or have some other ridiculous survivability method, S3 lasguns just feel pointless.

if I need to have 8-9 guardsmen for each special/heavy weapon I include, then I'd rather those guardsmen were armed with something more threatening than a letter-opener.

I think they should be able to take up to 4 fortifications, first off.

Basic guardsmen and russes (not variants) get endless swarm rules.

More navy aircraft in the book. Let each scion sergeant give orders to his squad like a prime.

Heavy weapon teams get stealth and a price break.

 Silverthorne wrote:


Heavy weapon teams get stealth and a price break.

Taking fortified positions. (If you dont move you get a cover bonus) would be pretty cool

 vipoid wrote:
Personally, I'd like to see some sort of buff to the lasgun. e.g. an order that lets you halve your shots, but get extra strength based on the number of models firing.

In an edition where the entire enemy army can be AV10 (or better), or T7+ MCs, or have some other ridiculous survivability method, S3 lasguns just feel pointless.

if I need to have 8-9 guardsmen for each special/heavy weapon I include, then I'd rather those guardsmen were armed with something more threatening than a letter-opener.

This. The Lasgun was an adequate weapon back in 5th when armies where composed of sane units. These days however it is just a largely useless weapon.

 master of ordinance wrote:
This. The Lasgun was an adequate weapon back in 5th when armies where composed of sane units. These days however it is just a largely useless weapon.

I don't get it, the lasgun is one of the best infantry weapons in the game. The sheer amount of dice you can roll is awesome. I also love how it makes anything taking a toughness 6 upgrade (such as nurgle bikes) a waste of points.

Yea. Plus we have oodles of plasma and melta and lascannons.

The lasgun is fine.

At a point where basic 13pt troops in some armies can require an average of 29 BS3 lasgun shots to inflict a single wound against, and where troops on jetbikes can pack quad-shot S6 weaponry, I think the issue is that the game has simply run away on itself so much that the basic Lasgun is ultimately both pointless and entirely too granular.

In my last dozen games I can probably count on one hand the number of successfully inflicted wounds my Lasguns have caused.

I don't think the problem was inherently really with the Lasgun so much, as it is the fact that the game has simply run amok and inflation has reached the point where such weapons are too granular to really matter. One might almost want to ditch them as an individual weapon entirely and treat the entire squad's shooting as a single combined weapon based on size.

Let's be fair though, the problem there is not worst for IG. Bolter marines suffer even worse, because they pay over twice as much for +1s - which is unlikely to make much difference with Wraithknights carving through your lines. There is very little that 10 BS4 S4 shots can achieve that 30 BS3 S3 shots can't.

And in return, with Ion Accelerators and Scatter Lasers, the T4 is not very useful either, and thanks to how easy it is to get a cover save the 3+ armour is not cost-effective either. In fact, the Scatter Laser is rather inefficient against Guardsmen because that extra point of strength is wasted. Orks suffer far more.

I think the best way is to recycle troop. and free tanks

The issue with lasguns is that you're lucky if you even inflict one wound per guard squad on a marine. That's 50pts to try to hurt one marine (and that's INCLUDING prescience and FRFSRF) You gotta add special weapons and heavy weapons to increase your chances but even then they'll only kill one marine each so its 60/70pts to kill 2-3 marines, provided they pass the buff rolls. THEN you gotta try to make up for the fact that these guard will go down instantly.

You're reliant on tanks then and the sad truth is that our tanks... aren't really that good. They have great firepower but they're incredibly unreliable and there are countless hard counters to them. Not to mention how expensive they are. It's not that rare for non-guard armies to out-tank the guard amd a wall if AV12/14 just isn't what it used to be.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Let's be fair though, the problem there is not worst for IG. Bolter marines suffer even worse, because they pay over twice as much for +1s - which is unlikely to make much difference with Wraithknights carving through your lines. There is very little that 10 BS4 S4 shots can achieve that 30 BS3 S3 shots can't.
.

Well, assuming average Guard:

30 shots @50% hitrate so 15 shots hit. Average target is T4 so 33.3'% wounding = 5 wounds. Average save of a 3+ so of these only one wound will be actually taken. So for your 30 shots you inflict 1 wound on an MEQ. Even on something lighter with a 4+ save you are still only inflicting 2-3 wounds on average. The Lasgun is just terrible in this era of modern weapon inflation.

My person take on what I would like to see:

Bring back lord commander solar macharius – but not at 173 points, make him worth it

Bring back captain alrahem, chenkov and sly!

Make the imperial armour 2nd edition vanquisher the normal Vanquisher with option of beast hunter shells

Bring back 12” leadership bubble for CCS + PCS + commissar

Make orders come from sergeants and veteran sergeants

Vox allows to use leadership of PCS/CCS if outside 12 in bubble

LIMIT vets to 0-1 per army same as 3rd edition - in their original fluff, vets were rare. They were the last guys to survive 10 years of war out of a starting army of 600,000 or something. So these dude should be psycho elites, all come with shotguns standard, every man in squad can upgrade to melta-guns, they infiltrate, have stealth, move through cover, camo - they can take sly marbo to replace their vet Sargent

Reduce ogryn price to 20-30 points per ogryn, +10 points for bonehead

Lumbering behemoth – we want it back

Leman russ demolisher should be 140 points or 130 points not 170....

All leman russ get 4 or 5 hull points – necron transports get 4 hull points

Hydra gets interceptor and can shoot ground troops

Bring back cut artillery vehicles

Medics for infantry platoons to give blobs FNP

Give foot-slogging guard get camo-cloak options and light infantry/move through cover options – if they elect to take a transport then they loose these two upgrades/options

get rid of lasguns, make them autoguns or something ... lasers that cant kill...really?

 Trickstick wrote:

I don't get it, the lasgun is one of the best infantry weapons in the game.

By what possible measure?

 Trickstick wrote:
The sheer amount of dice you can roll is awesome.

No, it really isn't. Mostly it's just a waste of time - when you roll 50+ dice and do maybe 1 wound as a result. Yeah, that was really worth the effort.

Most of the time, it's the equivalent of snapshotting bolters - you're rolling a lot of dice but having a negligible impact on the game.

Also, I think you're vastly underestimating the ease with which other armies can sweep guardsmen off the table. You'll often have a squad firing 40 lasgun shots in your turn, and then just 10 the turn after. Meanwhile, I strongly doubt that your lasguns inflicted comparable casualties on the enemy.

 Trickstick wrote:
I also love how it makes anything taking a toughness 6 upgrade (such as nurgle bikes) a waste of points.

Indeed. I bet those Nurgle bikers are really trembling when it takes a mere 36 lasgun shots to down a single one of them.

sumi808 wrote:My person take on what I would like to see:

Bring back lord commander solar macharius – but not at 173 points, make him worth it

Bring back captain alrahem, chenkov and sly!

Make the imperial armour 2nd edition vanquisher the normal Vanquisher with option of beast hunter shells

Bring back 12” leadership bubble for CCS + PCS + commissar

Make orders come from sergeants and veteran sergeants

Vox allows to use leadership of PCS/CCS if outside 12 in bubble

LIMIT vets to 0-1 per army same as 3rd edition - in their original fluff, vets were rare. They were the last guys to survive 10 years of war out of a starting army of 600,000 or something. So these dude should be psycho elites, all come with shotguns standard, every man in squad can upgrade to melta-guns, they infiltrate, have stealth, move through cover, camo - they can take sly marbo to replace their vet Sargent

Reduce ogryn price to 20-30 points per ogryn, +10 points for bonehead

Lumbering behemoth – we want it back

Leman russ demolisher should be 140 points or 130 points not 170....

All leman russ get 4 or 5 hull points – necron transports get 4 hull points

Hydra gets interceptor and can shoot ground troops

Bring back cut artillery vehicles

Medics for infantry platoons to give blobs FNP

Give foot-slogging guard get camo-cloak options and light infantry/move through cover options – if they elect to take a transport then they loose these two upgrades/options

get rid of lasguns, make them autoguns or something ... lasers that cant kill...really?

I would say yes to most of this but as to limiting veterans HELL NO! I run Veteran IG armies at the moment as they are the most reliable troops choice and to be honest the only one even remotely worth investing the masses of points in. And do NOT make the Shotgun the standard weapon. Unless you are facing Tau or the sole last survivor of a SM squad you do NOT want to be entering assault as everyone is better than you.

Apart from that I agree with you. The Demolisher needs to be cheaper, 130 to 140 points. Sure its a big ass cannon, but its mounted on an expensive tank with a rear armour of 11 and a requirement to get realllllllyyyyy close to the enemy in order to be used and unlike the SM vindicator it can not just ignore terrain.
Blobs of FNP would be a beautiful sight, each Medic should have an 8" bubble or something.
Hull Points need to just vanish and be replaced with separate Glance and Penetration tables. But given that GW seem to be fixed on this 'LOMG! TANKS ARE LIKE MC'S BUT WEAKER!!1!1' kind of attitude the LR does need its HP buffed to 4 or 5.
Rough Riders. Make them 6 points per model and make that lance a multi use weapon that is Strength and Initiative +2 and AP2 on the charge. They might actually be worth taking then.
LB. Yes, just yes.
Give the Vanquisher Beast Hunter shells and a +4 on the penetration damage role. And the ability to fire HE shells as it can in fluff. It might actually be useful then.
Hydra's should have had Interceptor and Ground Attack first. Seriously, they where the first ever dedicated AA weapons in the game.
Ogryns need to be 20-25 points. Bullgryns around 30 at the most.

vipoid wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

I don't get it, the lasgun is one of the best infantry weapons in the game.

By what possible measure?

 Trickstick wrote:
The sheer amount of dice you can roll is awesome.

No, it really isn't. Mostly it's just a waste of time - when you roll 50+ dice and do maybe 1 wound as a result. Yeah, that was really worth the effort.

Most of the time, it's the equivalent of snapshotting bolters - you're rolling a lot of dice but having a negligible impact on the game.

Also, I think you're vastly underestimating the ease with which other armies can sweep guardsmen off the table. You'll often have a squad firing 40 lasgun shots in your turn, and then just 10 the turn after. Meanwhile, I strongly doubt that your lasguns inflicted comparable casualties on the enemy.

 Trickstick wrote:
I also love how it makes anything taking a toughness 6 upgrade (such as nurgle bikes) a waste of points.

Indeed. I bet those Nurgle bikers are really trembling when it takes a mere 36 lasgun shots to down a single one of them.

Just ignore him. He appears to be one of these SM players whom is butthurt because 50+ Lasgun shots killed one of his precious Tactical Marines, and he was only able to wipe out 98% of the IG unit in his next turn as the result.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, we need IA Volume two to be updated. Almost every unit in there is overpriced for what it does.

Yeah, don't limit vets. Vets are actually in a decent spot right now, they just need a better ride and better support.

Lots of good ideas in this thread over all, very few I'd entirely disagree with.

On the subject of doctrines/regimental traits, I'd prefer if GW/the power that be decided against using a specific regiment name tied to a specific trait, and were more generic with the traits. Like 'Light Infantry' instead of 'Catachan Jungle Fighters', or 'Masters of the Siege' instead of 'Death Korps of Krieg'.

Allows for more flexibility and logic with existing regiments, and more fluff oriented for DIY regiments. I just don't like being pigeon-holed or having to explain to someone that my clearly Mordian Iron Guard force is using a trait that is not the actual Mordian Iron Guard trait.

Hopefully we see more formations to give Guard the extra boost we need, but I really want Ordnance Russes to be fixed, we need Lumbering behemoth back and the MBT and Demolisher both need to be a lot cheaper.

Lasguns do need improvement as well, they barely kill anything, I think my conscripts have killed more models in close combat than shooting, due to the re-rolls from the Priest.


Would like the Hellhound and it's variants to be a lot cheaper, maybe around 70-75 pts?

Oh, there's no way there won't a dozen formations and some sort of super formation.

Yeah, Hellhounds and their ilk shouldn't be more than 90pts. Then again, at ~70pts, it steps on the toes of the humble chimera, but then again again, the Chimera is overpriced, which means the Taurox is also overpriced if the chimera drops in points.

Yeah the Chimera is overpriced and should also drop in points, it's the side armour 10 that really kills it, being able to be boltered to death on such a large portion of the vehicle really hampers it, I'd rather have Rhino armour stats if it meant a drop in points.

 Hoyt wrote:
Yeah the Chimera is overpriced and should also drop in points, it's the side armour 10 that really kills it, being able to be boltered to death on such a large portion of the vehicle really hampers it, I'd rather have Rhino armour stats if it meant a drop in points.

I'd rather keep the AV12 front (it has its uses with enough of them) and drop back to ~50pts, 55-60 with an autocannon turret.

I'd love to see Guard vehicles get a "Reinforced Armor" upgrade.

Something like 20 points for boosting their side armor values by a point.

Hell, you know what?

"Reactive Armor"--10 points for a boost to the side and rear armor values until they suffer a penetrating hit to those facings.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Hoyt wrote:
Yeah the Chimera is overpriced and should also drop in points, it's the side armour 10 that really kills it, being able to be boltered to death on such a large portion of the vehicle really hampers it, I'd rather have Rhino armour stats if it meant a drop in points.

I'd rather keep the AV12 front (it has its uses with enough of them) and drop back to ~50pts, 55-60 with an autocannon turret.

50 pts is reasonable, I'd happily pay that, then the Hellhound variants could be around 75 pts I think.

 Hoyt wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Hoyt wrote:
Yeah the Chimera is overpriced and should also drop in points, it's the side armour 10 that really kills it, being able to be boltered to death on such a large portion of the vehicle really hampers it, I'd rather have Rhino armour stats if it meant a drop in points.

I'd rather keep the AV12 front (it has its uses with enough of them) and drop back to ~50pts, 55-60 with an autocannon turret.

50 pts is reasonable, I'd happily pay that, then the Hellhound variants could be around 75 pts I think.

Make it so.

Give them cool formation like in the SM 7th edition. I really wanna see those guardsmen shining and not only 7 up to 10 tanks deployed with only 2 infantry squads.

Oh hell yes, drop the prices on the Hellhound and its ilk. 130 points for an AV12/12/10 tank that has to get really realllyyyy close to the enemy to actually engage them (Template range for one of them) with 3HP and BS3 is just plain stupid. Drop the Chimera to 45-50 points and make the Autocannon a free upgrade (your dropping a shot for that +2 Strength) and drop the Taurox down to 35 points (an 11/10/10 vehicle with BS3 and 3HP is a joke at 75 points) and we can start talking again.

Whilst we are here the Earthshaker cannon on the Basilisk needs to be able to fire directly again. Or at least reduce the minimal range down to 12". 36" - otherwise known as half the length ways board - is way to far for a minimal range. And drop the price on them too.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Just ignore him. He appears to be one of these SM players whom is butthurt because 50+ Lasgun shots killed one of his precious Tactical Marines, and he was only able to wipe out 98% of the IG unit in his next turn as the result.

That is a bit of a random personal attack. I'm actually a pure blooded Guard player, and have been for many years. I just happen to see merit in mass lasgun tactics. The biggest mark against them is the same as with any horde army, the time and effort it takes to play.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Whilst we are here the Earthshaker cannon on the Basilisk needs to be able to fire directly again.

Earthshakers can fire directly.

 Trickstick wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Just ignore him. He appears to be one of these SM players whom is butthurt because 50+ Lasgun shots killed one of his precious Tactical Marines, and he was only able to wipe out 98% of the IG unit in his next turn as the result.

That is a bit of a random personal attack. I'm actually a pure blooded Guard player, and have been for many years. I just happen to see merit in mass lasgun tactics. The biggest mark against them is the same as with any horde army, the time and effort it takes to play.

Sorry, I do get a bit butthurt over this subject. Sure, 50 odd shots do seem impressive but when you are inflicting 1 to 2 wounds with all those dice.... And then your opponent fires back and wipes most of the squad... It just gets to you after a while.
your sections keep pumping out shots and they seem to do nothing but your opponents models pretty much just have to fart at your infantry to kill half of them.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Whilst we are here the Earthshaker cannon on the Basilisk needs to be able to fire directly again.

Earthshakers can fire directly.

Not in the new codex. They are Barrage only with a 36" minimal range.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Whilst we are here the Earthshaker cannon on the Basilisk needs to be able to fire directly again.

Earthshakers can fire directly.

Not in the new codex. They are Barrage only with a 36" minimal range.

They are barrage with a 36" minimum range. The barrage rules (brb 160) state that barrage weapons can fire directly within minimum range. The only weapons in the codex that can't fire directly are storm eagle rockets and the deathstrike, because they are specifically prohibited.

Oh boy, where to start.

With the, let's say rapid expansion, of the lethality of the 40K battlefield, the Imperial Guard have been left behind like their traditional epithet.

Infantry: these need to be like the Renegades list in Vraks. Cheap as dirt, and 1 special weapon/vox/banner per 5, 1 heavy weapon per 10. Instead of 35 base with 3 for each additional one, make them 50 base (to represent flak armour and militia training) and 4 for each additional one.

Stormtroopers: Skitarii and the Scouts frankly make a mockery of these guys. They are still one of the better plasma delivery systems out there with built-in deep strike and move through cover, but they are still too expensive. They should be 10 points each, no more.

Oddball stuff: Ogryn need to be cheaper, rough riders need some kind of special rule, psychic battle squad should not suck.

Tanks: I had briefly hoped tanks would have a resurgence with the reduction of melta-spam out there (everyone is going grav first and plasma second), but there is a LOT of haywire, gauss, and now D out there. And it's not like crazy grav spam can't still easily delete vehicles by itself. I don't know what can be done here, since the Russes were already significantly reduced in price. A tank formation that lets them fire overwatch would be nice, especially if it let you snap fire blasts (and cause D3 or D6 automatic hits like flamers, for example) .

Really, a lot of things could be fixed just by giving guard some formations, especially ones that let them take stuff for free. A gladius-like formation for Steel Legion with a bunch of free chimeras, for example.

I can't remember if I've brought this up before, but one thing that really bugs me is that most of our equipment seems to be based on SM prices.

Now, this isn't too bad with ranged weapons - where only the firer's BS matters. The problems really start when you get to melee weapons. e.g. a Veteran Sergeant pays about 60% of his base cost for a power sword, which he swings at WS4 S4 I4. In contrast, a guardsman sergeant pays 300% of his base cost for a power sword that he swings at WS3 S3 I3.

Why is he paying so much more for an inferior weapon?

It's the same problem with our HQs. A SM Chapter Master pays ~25% of his base cost for a S8 power fist, whilst our Lord Commissar pays ~40% of his base cost for a S6 power fist.

Pricing equipment this way undermines the whole idea of 'cheap but weak' characters.

 Hoyt wrote:
Yeah the Chimera is overpriced and should also drop in points,

If the SM book is any guide, Chimeras will be FREE if you take enough 3 Platoons and a CHQ.

vipoid wrote:I can't remember if I've brought this up before, but one thing that really bugs me is that most of our equipment seems to be based on SM prices.

Now, this isn't too bad with ranged weapons - where only the firer's BS matters. The problems really start when you get to melee weapons. e.g. a Veteran Sergeant pays about 60% of his base cost for a power sword, which he swings at WS4 S4 I4. In contrast, a guardsman sergeant pays 300% of his base cost for a power sword that he swings at WS3 S3 I3.

Why is he paying so much more for an inferior weapon?

It's the same problem with our HQs. A SM Chapter Master pays ~25% of his base cost for a S8 power fist, whilst our Lord Commissar pays ~40% of his base cost for a S6 power fist.

Pricing equipment this way undermines the whole idea of 'cheap but weak' characters.

This as well. There is no way that a Power Weapon is worth 10 points for an IG officer.

HandofMars wrote:
Tanks: I had briefly hoped tanks would have a resurgence with the reduction of melta-spam out there (everyone is going grav first and plasma second), but there is a LOT of haywire, gauss, and now D out there. And it's not like crazy grav spam can't still easily delete vehicles by itself. I don't know what can be done here, since the Russes were already significantly reduced in price. A tank formation that lets them fire overwatch would be nice, especially if it let you snap fire blasts (and cause D3 or D6 automatic hits like flamers, for example) .

*Chuckles* the price reduction came with the massive nerf that was the removal of the LB rule, essentially invalidating a lot of tank builds. And the Demolisher and Executioner where actually ramped up in price.
If we ever get a decent formation that does something like that before the Space Smurfs I will rejoice. But given that we IG peasants are not allowed to out perform the gods of Timmyhood in any way shape or form I sadly doubt it will ever happen.

 master of ordinance wrote:

This as well. There is no way that a Power Weapon is worth 10 points for an IG officer.

I hate to tell you this, but our officers pay 15pts for their power weapons...

 vipoid wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

This as well. There is no way that a Power Weapon is worth 10 points for an IG officer.

I hate to tell you this, but our officers pay 15pts for their power weapons...

Ack! Thanks for that, I havnt used them in that long that I had forgotten!

Many of our tanks are already organized into squads, so I don't know how vehicle formations for certain tanks would work unless they're very specific. A formation of deathstrikes would be amusing.

I'd like to see the option that a Leman Russ tank in a squadron can be upgrade to a tank squadron commander... what that guy would do I don't know, but it seems appropriate.

I could see a formation of Hellhounds combining their shots to use a single apocalypse flamer template.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Hoyt wrote:
Yeah the Chimera is overpriced and should also drop in points,

If the SM book is any guide, Chimeras will be FREE if you take enough 3 Platoons and a CHQ.

I don't think this would ever happen. There is a clear difference in gains between the 20% bonus a marine squad would get by having free rhinos, and the almost 100% bonus you'd get for a IG squads getting free chimeras. I think more realistically would be some sort of multi-platoon Cadian formation where one squad per platoon gets a free chimera.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Hoyt wrote:
Yeah the Chimera is overpriced and should also drop in points,

If the SM book is any guide, Chimeras will be FREE if you take enough 3 Platoons and a CHQ.

If that actually comes to pass, most of the old IG players will cackle with glee. We've got enough Chimeras to choke a hippo. Now, actually fitting them on the table may be a completely different problem...

 vipoid wrote:
I can't remember if I've brought this up before, but one thing that really bugs me is that most of our equipment seems to be based on SM prices.

Now, this isn't too bad with ranged weapons - where only the firer's BS matters. The problems really start when you get to melee weapons. e.g. a Veteran Sergeant pays about 60% of his base cost for a power sword, which he swings at WS4 S4 I4. In contrast, a guardsman sergeant pays 300% of his base cost for a power sword that he swings at WS3 S3 I3.

Why is he paying so much more for an inferior weapon?

It's the same problem with our HQs. A SM Chapter Master pays ~25% of his base cost for a S8 power fist, whilst our Lord Commissar pays ~40% of his base cost for a S6 power fist.

Pricing equipment this way undermines the whole idea of 'cheap but weak' characters.

Because you're not paying for WS, S or I. You did that when you bought your guardsman/Sergeant. You're paying for the AP. Is the guardsman's power sword worse AP than the Sergeants?

Breton wrote:

Because you're not paying for WS, S or I. You did that when you bought your guardsman/Sergeant. You're paying for the AP. Is the guardsman's power sword worse AP than the Sergeants?

But that's the thing - when you take into account the base price of the models, the guardsman is paying 5 times more than the space marine.

Are guardmen getting 5 times the value out of AP3?

 Ashiraya wrote:
Let's be fair though, the problem there is not worst for IG. Bolter marines suffer even worse, because they pay over twice as much for +1s - which is unlikely to make much difference with Wraithknights carving through your lines.

Let's be honest here.

Bolter marines pay over twice as much for +1s and ap 5 on their guns, and frag grenades, and a 3+ armor save, and +1 to almost every (baseline) stat that they have.

While I'm not trying to argue that tacs are amazing or anything (this thread isn't about them), they're hardly just "guardsmen with +1 strength to their guns for twice the points."

 master of ordinance wrote:


Whilst we are here the Earthshaker cannon on the Basilisk needs to be able to fire directly again. Or at least reduce the minimal range down to 12". 36" - otherwise known as half the length ways board - is way to far for a minimal range. And drop the price on them too.

Wait, earthshakers can't fire directly? Where's that rule? o.O

 morganfreeman wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:


Whilst we are here the Earthshaker cannon on the Basilisk needs to be able to fire directly again. Or at least reduce the minimal range down to 12". 36" - otherwise known as half the length ways board - is way to far for a minimal range. And drop the price on them too.

Wait, earthshakers can't fire directly? Where's that rule? o.O

Read the Barrage rules in the rulebook, it states barrage can fire indirectly as long as its beyond minimum range, or fire directly normally

 aka_mythos wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Hoyt wrote:
Yeah the Chimera is overpriced and should also drop in points,

If the SM book is any guide, Chimeras will be FREE if you take enough 3 Platoons and a CHQ.

I don't think this would ever happen. There is a clear difference in gains between the 20% bonus a marine squad would get by having free rhinos, and the almost 100% bonus you'd get for a IG squads getting free chimeras. I think more realistically would be some sort of multi-platoon Cadian formation where one squad per platoon gets a free chimera.

The Marines get FREE Razorbacks or FREE Drop Pods; IG Chimeras are grossly overpriced, so FREE is a fair price. Chimeras for everyone who can take them as Dedicated Transports.

I only have a half-dozen Chimeras, so there's really not that much self-interest here. If I were serious about it meching up, I'd have more like a dozen Chimeras.

Most of what could be said has already been said, but one thing I think would be cool is if we brought more stuff in from the 30k Solar Auxilla and Militia books.
-If GW doesn't want Banblades in the books, at least give us some 30k Maclador's.
-Replace Lasguns with the lasrifles from there as well, with the atachments that can make it Heavy 2 or a one shot multi-laser.
-Macladors or Dracossans as Alternative transports.
-Transfer a lot of the vehicle upgrades over as well.
-Attachable medic squads as elites.
-Give us either Thunderbolts or Vultures in the main dex.
-Recon squads with Infiltrate, Move Through Cover, Stealth, and the ability to all take Sniper Rifles

Besides the 30k stuff, here's what else
-Chimera points decrease and Autocannon turret.
-Bring back the removed vehicles, and characters. Especially Marbo
-BS 4 upgrades for vehicles
-Actually make sentinels useful. Not sure how to do this
-Hellhound and variants to around 70-80 apiece
-Upgrade Voxcasters
-New fortifications, mines, emplacements, heck even rigged unerground exploisives which turns the terrain into difficult of dangerous
-Endless swarm rules
-Vendettas to maybe 150 pts?
-Regimental doctrines. If GW can make chapter tactics, this should be no problem.
-Formations. Not Decurion level, but the Imperial Guard is supposed to be very disciplined and organizational, yet I think we have fewer formations then the orks.

Will post more as I think them up

 aka_mythos wrote:
Many of our tanks are already organized into squads, so I don't know how vehicle formations for certain tanks would work unless they're very specific. A formation of deathstrikes would be amusing.

I'd like to see the option that a Leman Russ tank in a squadron can be upgrade to a tank squadron commander... what that guy would do I don't know, but it seems appropriate.

I could see a formation of Hellhounds combining their shots to use a single apocalypse flamer template.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Hoyt wrote:
Yeah the Chimera is overpriced and should also drop in points,

If the SM book is any guide, Chimeras will be FREE if you take enough 3 Platoons and a CHQ.

I don't think this would ever happen. There is a clear difference in gains between the 20% bonus a marine squad would get by having free rhinos, and the almost 100% bonus you'd get for a IG squads getting free chimeras. I think more realistically would be some sort of multi-platoon Cadian formation where one squad per platoon gets a free chimera.

Dark Angels Ravenwing Support Squads are vehicles with overwatch, so there is precedent.

That is something I never thought of....I like it!

Bring all the imperial armour second edition stuff into the normal codex

make guard vehicles BS4 (tank commander bs5 and pask bs6)

Lumbering behemoth

defensive weapons rule - so when they are assaulted the tanks can fire all their hull mounted and sponsor and pintle weapons at normal BS (maybe not main gun)

increase hull points to 5

Ratlings get Infiltrate, Move Through Cover, Stealth, and Sniper Rifles at BS4 for 6 points a model?

Astra Militarum Infantry Company
Core: 1-2
Auxiliary: 1+
Command: 0-3

Infantry Platoon (Core):
1x Commissar or Junior Officer
1x Platoon Command Squad
2x Infantry Platoons
1x Veteran Squad
0-1 Sentinel Squadron (Armored or Scout)

[If two Infantry Platoons are taken with a Commissar and Junior Officer all Dedicated Transports are free.]

Infantry Company Command (Command):
1x Company Command Squad
0-1 Commissar
0-1 Astropath
0-1 Priest
0-1 Engineer

Armored Fist Command (Command):
1x Tank Commander Squadron
0-1 Tech

Lord Commissar Command (Command):
1x Lord Commissar
0-10 Commissars
0-1 Transport

Primaris Psyker Conclave (Command):
1x Primaris Psyker
1x Wyrdvane Psykers
0-1 Transport

Armored Fist Task Force (Auxiliary):
1-5 Engineers
3-5 Leman Russ Squadrons
0-1 Basilisk Battery
0-1 Wyvern Battery
0-3 Manticors
0-1 Death-Strike

Militarum Tempestus (Auxiliary):
1x Militarum Tempestus Command Squad
2-5 Militarum Tempestus Squads

Air Defense Force (Auxiliary):
1x Hydra Battery
1x Vendetta Squadron

Scout Platoon (Auxiliary):
2-5 Veteran Squads [Must take forward Sentries]
0-3 Special Weapons Squads
0-3 Ratings

Air-Assault Squadron (Auxiliary):
1x Valkyrie Assault Gunships
1x Vendetta Gun Ships

Artillery Support (Auxiliary):
1 Basilisk Battery
1 Scout Sentinel Squadron

Heavy Siege Platoon (Auxiliary):
1-2 Ogryns
1-2 Bullgryns
0-1 Leman Russ Demolisher Squadron

Armored Recon (Auxiliary):
1-3 Scout Sentinel Squadrons
0-3 Hellhound Squadron
0-3 Rough Riders

 sumi808 wrote:
make guard vehicles BS4 (tank commander bs5 and pask bs6)

No.

If anything IG stats are TOO good. BS3 across the board, except specialists and characters.

Even better if Guardsmen go to WS2.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 sumi808 wrote:
make guard vehicles BS4 (tank commander bs5 and pask bs6)

No.

If anything IG stats are TOO good. BS3 across the board, except specialists and characters.

Even better if Guardsmen go to WS2.

Keep us at BS3 base, but allow us to purchase Veteran Crew's as an upgrade to make them BS4. 10 points should cover it.

Yeah, BS4 should be saved for stormies, vets, and senior officers, commissars, and advisors/non-Guardsmen.

I wouldn't be sad if there continued to be no veteran vehicle BS4, but I wouldn't be too excited either if there magically was the option in the new book.

I can see the Navy options (aircraft) getting some sort of Ace upgrade, which could be +1BS and/or upgraded Jink save. That would be a fair and reasonable compromise to me.

Give an air combat squadron bonus since flyers have fallen out of favor, so for example put the guard's "inspiring presence" rule if you run 3 vendettas or Valkyries. This will even out the formation divide in 7th.

 Hoyt wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:


Whilst we are here the Earthshaker cannon on the Basilisk needs to be able to fire directly again. Or at least reduce the minimal range down to 12". 36" - otherwise known as half the length ways board - is way to far for a minimal range. And drop the price on them too.

Wait, earthshakers can't fire directly? Where's that rule? o.O

Read the Barrage rules in the rulebook, it states barrage can fire indirectly as long as its beyond minimum range, or fire directly normally

Yeah, I'm well aware. Which is why I was scratching my head at what I quoted - a flate statement of the Basilisk being unable to direct fire and a need to reduce the min range to compensate.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 sumi808 wrote:
make guard vehicles BS4 (tank commander bs5 and pask bs6)

No.

If anything IG stats are TOO good. BS3 across the board, except specialists and characters.

Even better if Guardsmen go to WS2.

Keep us at BS3 base, but allow us to purchase Veteran Crew's as an upgrade to make them BS4. 10 points should cover it.

10 pts is far too cheap for how rare BS4 should be in a Guard army.

Consider that BS4 = +33% direct fire efficiency, then a 150-pt Tank should pay at least +50 pts for BS4.

I'd be OK if Pask were made non-unique. Pay Pask points for +1 BS.

There's more to a unit than its gun.

A 33% price increase is ridiculous.

I disagree that BS4 should be "rare" in Guard forces.

They're not PDFs. BS3 should be what you see for PDFs(trained, but not highly skilled)--and BS4 should be Guard squads.

When the 6th edition Codex came out, I was horrified. While most of the units I used were still there, what we really lost was that ability to make an army that felt thematically different from other IG armies. I wanted those regimental doctrines that were rumored before the book came out, and I wanted all those special characters that we lost.

I've really just stopped caring about new codex releases. I just built my own, and while I'm still playtesting and modifying it, I'm finally playing with the army which I've wanted to play for such a long time. I'm trying to encourage my brother and friends to make their own codexes. Why should we pay 60 bucks each time they release another one of these books only to get dissapointed when they remove long-held units and beloved characters. I hardly want formations, I don't ever even play competitively.

If anyone wants to see the changes I made, heres the document. It's really rough, but I've had more fun playing this army than playing necrons or anything else.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/141WrF8qfNv2GZO4BRZKw_IU_EQr6aVuoobvZEk37M38/edit?usp=sharing

 Kanluwen wrote:
I disagree that BS4 should be "rare" in Guard forces.

They're not PDFs. BS3 should be what you see for PDFs(trained, but not highly skilled)--and BS4 should be Guard squads.

This is actually incorrect. The Conscript profile is BS2, and it can be reasonably assumed that your bog standard PDF (basically like a National Guard, or Special Police Force equivalent) is what this is meant to represent.

BS 3 should be reserved for actual Guardsmen which are supposed to be "the best of the best" from any given planet or sector.

BS 4 (or any 4 stat) in 40K is generally reserved for the extremely well trained or experienced.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 sumi808 wrote:
make guard vehicles BS4 (tank commander bs5 and pask bs6)

No.

If anything IG stats are TOO good. BS3 across the board, except specialists and characters.

Even better if Guardsmen go to WS2.

Keep us at BS3 base, but allow us to purchase Veteran Crew's as an upgrade to make them BS4. 10 points should cover it.

10 pts is far too cheap for how rare BS4 should be in a Guard army.

Consider that BS4 = +33% direct fire efficiency, then a 150-pt Tank should pay at least +50 pts for BS4.

I'd be OK if Pask were made non-unique. Pay Pask points for +1 BS.

50 points for +1BS on a tank, are you have a laugh or have you just gone completely insane. Its not like the Leman Russ is particularly strong right now. Its an average tank and 150 points is only netting you AV14/13/10, a Battlecannon, a Heavy Bolter, BS3 and 3HP. Veteran squads pay 10 points to be +1BS. A tank should not have to pay much more than that if it should have to pay more than 10 at all, and 50 is just a joke. 200 points... That nets SM players an AV14/14/14 4HP BS4 2 TL Lascannon, 1TL Heavy Bolter 12 man capacity tank. Is a BS4 Leman Russ really worth as much as a fething Landraider?!
No it is not. 160 points, yes. 165 points, maybe. 200 points.... Are you off your meds?!

10pts for +1BS is probably too cheap. I'd say more like +20pts for "Veteran Tank crews" which give +1BS, but can only be taken on vehicles in a Tank Commander Squadron. At least then you can have a squadron of Vanquishers that are all BS4.

 GoonBandito wrote:
10pts for +1BS is probably too cheap. I'd say more like +20pts for "Veteran Tank crews" which give +1BS, but can only be taken on vehicles in a Tank Commander Squadron. At least then you can have a squadron of Vanquishers that are all BS4.

You'd have to make it different for each vehicle type.

Increasing the BS on the Hellhound family or arty isn't doing much. Same goes for blast variants of Russes.

Chimera get affected more, as would certain Russes and flyers.

If simplicity is the name of the game, 10pts is probably the most fair. Its big investment for a bunch of Chimeras, and perhaps a little cheap for the likes of Punishers, but useless on many other Guard vehicles.

 ultimentra wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
I disagree that BS4 should be "rare" in Guard forces.

They're not PDFs. BS3 should be what you see for PDFs(trained, but not highly skilled)--and BS4 should be Guard squads.

This is actually incorrect. The Conscript profile is BS2, and it can be reasonably assumed that your bog standard PDF (basically like a National Guard, or Special Police Force equivalent) is what this is meant to represent.

BS 3 should be reserved for actual Guardsmen which are supposed to be "the best of the best" from any given planet or sector.

Conscripts are not the same as PDFs, so suggesting that their profile is representative is a bit much. And no, the 'bog standard PDF' is not 'like a National Guard or Special Police Force equivalent'. It's a standing army for a planet, intended to stave off raids from small forces or small uprisings.

The PDF is also meant to slow down any invading force that is beyond their means or weaken them for the Imperium's reprisal.

Conscripts are something different entirely. They're untrained or untested masses given guns and sent to the front lines. One could make an argument that a Cadian Whiteshield unit(traditionally represented by "Conscript Squads") wouldn't be BS2 but rather BS3 given that we're talking about teenagers who have been engaged in live fire exercises and constant training since the age of 6. Conscripts are basically the Imperium's version of Cultists.

To clarify a bit more though, I feel like BS3 would be worthless with Guard. Lasguns aren't so powerful that they should be hamstrung by a lowered Ballistic Skill. They're already Rapid Fire weapons, meaning that they require you to get into Rapid Fire range to get the most out of your weapons.

Lasguns go to Salvo 2/4 and S3 AP4 or 5? Yeah, okay maybe BS3 would be better as a mitigating factor.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Hoyt wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:


Whilst we are here the Earthshaker cannon on the Basilisk needs to be able to fire directly again. Or at least reduce the minimal range down to 12". 36" - otherwise known as half the length ways board - is way to far for a minimal range. And drop the price on them too.

Wait, earthshakers can't fire directly? Where's that rule? o.O

Read the Barrage rules in the rulebook, it states barrage can fire indirectly as long as its beyond minimum range, or fire directly normally

Yeah, I'm well aware. Which is why I was scratching my head at what I quoted - a flate statement of the Basilisk being unable to direct fire and a need to reduce the min range to compensate.

Just clarifying for the person you quoted, I dunno why people keep claiming you can't fire directly with a Bassie.





As for tanks and BS 4, I think 15 pts for an upgrade to it is reasonable, Tau and Eldar got it, why shouldn't the masters of armoured warfare get it too?

1. Rough riders released as models or removed. They're pointless as they are.

2. Some sort of motorcycle unit would be cool and give added mobility to the IG. Perhaps they could fight like dragoons, that is, use the bikes to get around and for cover when standing still (5+ cs), but not being able to fight from them?

3. +1 T for heavy weapon squads.

4. Bayonets for 5 points for whole squad, giving them S4 when charging. Could be a regimental doctrine. Which neeeds to be put back in!

5. Power fists should not cost 25 points for a T3 S3 model.

6. Lumbering behemoth back for LR.

7. Regiment wide rules. Whats the point in having vostroyan and catachans if they're all the same anyway? It annoys the crap out of me that these has been retconned like so much else. I also loved the chapter doctrines that was in 4th(?).

8. Possibility for medic for every squad.

9. Baneblades will probably be in the main codex. Would at least give us a more standard LoW.

10. Commisars should be W2 like they used to be.

11. Lord Commisars are too expencive. 50 would be a better price.

12. CCSs are too expencive. Really like the advisors though.

Id like to see something like how sm can upgrade the captain to have a bike with horses instead. But make horses more useful with extra wound or toughnes. Then iif your warlord is on a horse makes rough riders troops or allows vets to take the upgrade to make a really mobile force. I don't particularly want to charge, I just want a way to get about the field more.

On a slightly interesting note it's now showing "Ork Bestsellers", "Meks", and "Astra Militarum Bestsellers" on the main Warhammer 40,000 page for GW.

 Blacksails wrote:

 GoonBandito wrote:
10pts for +1BS is probably too cheap. I'd say more like +20pts for "Veteran Tank crews" which give +1BS, but can only be taken on vehicles in a Tank Commander Squadron. At least then you can have a squadron of Vanquishers that are all BS4.

You'd have to make it different for each vehicle type.

But why?

I pay the same for a Plasma gun whether its being used by a regular guardsman or a veteran.

MarsNZ wrote:


But why?

I pay the same for a Plasma gun whether its being used by a regular guardsman or a veteran.

Which, theoretically, also doesn't make sense. A plasma gun is more effective on vets for two/three important reasons. The first is the BS boost which makes the weapon directly more effective, the second is the carrying cost and number of guns per unit, which greatly favours the vets, and the kind of third reason is the total cost in bringing the same number of plasma guns to bear.

Now, this is where it gets fuzzy in balance, because everything should have a role, and vets having the role of special weapon monkeys works, compared to platoons which can bring mass heavy and special weapons while being durable through number of wounds.

Its the same reason a power fist isn't worth 25pts on a Guard model even though its what marines pay. A much more reasonable price would be 15pts for much of the same reasons I listed above.

With 40k's granularity (or lack thereof), its really not worth it for wargear price changes within the codex, but if this were more like an RPG on a D20 or D100 system, then it would make sense to bump the cost of plasma on vets a little higher than the cost on base guardsmen.

With something like a vet crew, simplicity wise, a flat 10-15pts upgrade in the armoury section would be reasonable. If we were to get nitty-gritty, then arty should be paying less than a Punisher due to how BS affects those two weapons.

Guard had 10 point power weapons and 15 point fists in the previous book, but I guess power blobs were just too hardcore.

Nah, it comes down to Robin Cruddace and his "streamlining" ideas.

If he can't copy/paste it, it's too complex!

The same thing that will fix Tactical marines. A drastic improvement to the basic troop type and basic trooper weapon.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Nah, it comes down to Robin Cruddace and his "streamlining" ideas.

If he can't copy/paste it, it's too complex!

Robin Cruddace wrote the (superior) 5th edition book as well. Hell, I'd rather use the 5th edition book than the 6th edition book considering how little was changed and most for the worse.

 Quintinus wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Nah, it comes down to Robin Cruddace and his "streamlining" ideas.

If he can't copy/paste it, it's too complex!

Robin Cruddace wrote the (superior) 5th edition book as well. Hell, I'd rather use the 5th edition book than the 6th edition book considering how little was changed and most for the worse.

Cruddace was claimed as "lead writer" on that, but it was one of the first books with his name alone on it--and I've heard through the grape vine for years that it really was more of a Ward book.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Quintinus wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Nah, it comes down to Robin Cruddace and his "streamlining" ideas.

If he can't copy/paste it, it's too complex!

Robin Cruddace wrote the (superior) 5th edition book as well. Hell, I'd rather use the 5th edition book than the 6th edition book considering how little was changed and most for the worse.

Cruddace was claimed as "lead writer" on that, but it was one of the first books with his name alone on it--and I've heard through the grape vine for years that it really was more of a Ward book.

Yeah, my best friend's former roomate's ex gf's ex bf was a black shirt. Heard the same thing from him.

In other words, anything to back that up other than just "through the grapevine"?

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Quintinus wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Nah, it comes down to Robin Cruddace and his "streamlining" ideas.

If he can't copy/paste it, it's too complex!

Robin Cruddace wrote the (superior) 5th edition book as well. Hell, I'd rather use the 5th edition book than the 6th edition book considering how little was changed and most for the worse.

Cruddace was claimed as "lead writer" on that, but it was one of the first books with his name alone on it--and I've heard through the grape vine for years that it really was more of a Ward book.

*Chokes* you mean there is a chance that Matt Ward, the Fluff Slayer, one of the most hated writers may actually have done something good?!
Hell, we need to bring 5th back. Less complicated special rules and vehicles that where actually effective. Leman Russ felt like heavy tanks, not crappy MC's that have all the vulnerabilities and none of the advantages of being MC's.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Quintinus wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Nah, it comes down to Robin Cruddace and his "streamlining" ideas.

If he can't copy/paste it, it's too complex!

Robin Cruddace wrote the (superior) 5th edition book as well. Hell, I'd rather use the 5th edition book than the 6th edition book considering how little was changed and most for the worse.

Cruddace was claimed as "lead writer" on that, but it was one of the first books with his name alone on it--and I've heard through the grape vine for years that it really was more of a Ward book.

*Chokes* you mean there is a chance that Matt Ward, the Fluff Slayer, one of the most hated writers may actually have done something good?!
Hell, we need to bring 5th back. Less complicated special rules and vehicles that where actually effective. Leman Russ felt like heavy tanks, not crappy MC's that have all the vulnerabilities and none of the advantages of being MC's.

The funny thing is, I'd believe that Mat Ward wrote it because the book was actually pretty fun to play once you got the hang of it. IMO Mat Ward was the best rules writer Games Workshop has had for a long while. He's the whole reason why all of the cool Rogue Trader and 2nd edition stuff like rad grenades, hallucinogen grenades, and other stuff came back. Was his stuff powerful? Sure, but I'd blame the other writers for not being on his level.

His background may have been childish at times, like with Draigo, but at least it was something new and caused discussion. For every Draigo there was something cool like Sanguinor anyway.

If you like Battle Focus, you can thank Ward for that as well. I'm sure he was responsible for a lot of things in the 6th edition Eldar book as well.

 Quintinus wrote:

The funny thing is, I'd believe that Mat Ward wrote it because the book was actually pretty fun to play once you got the hang of it. IMO Mat Ward was the best rules writer Games Workshop has had for a long while. He's the whole reason why all of the cool Rogue Trader and 2nd edition stuff like rad grenades, hallucinogen grenades, and other stuff came back. Was his stuff powerful? Sure, but I'd blame the other writers for not being on his level.

I would posit that when everything else is the problem...it usually isn't

His background may have been childish at times, like with Draigo, but at least it was something new and caused discussion. For every Draigo there was something cool like Sanguinor anyway.

Not everyone like the Sanguinor either, a lot of people thought that entire concept was terrible...

If you like Battle Focus, you can thank Ward for that as well. I'm sure he was responsible for a lot of things in the 6th edition Eldar book as well.

The one Phil Kelly & Adam Troke wrote? Where Ward isn't listed in any of the credits at all?

That Ward created battle focus is a rumor I've heard consistently over the years. Despite not being tla credited writer, Ward was the lead designer on the writing team and apparently contributed a fair amount to the design of many of the 6e codices.

 Blacksails wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:


But why?

I pay the same for a Plasma gun whether its being used by a regular guardsman or a veteran.

Which, theoretically, also doesn't make sense. A plasma gun is more effective on vets for two/three important reasons. The first is the BS boost which makes the weapon directly more effective, the second is the carrying cost and number of guns per unit, which greatly favours the vets, and the kind of third reason is the total cost in bringing the same number of plasma guns to bear.

Now, this is where it gets fuzzy in balance, because everything should have a role, and vets having the role of special weapon monkeys works, compared to platoons which can bring mass heavy and special weapons while being durable through number of wounds.

Its the same reason a power fist isn't worth 25pts on a Guard model even though its what marines pay. A much more reasonable price would be 15pts for much of the same reasons I listed above.

With 40k's granularity (or lack thereof), its really not worth it for wargear price changes within the codex, but if this were more like an RPG on a D20 or D100 system, then it would make sense to bump the cost of plasma on vets a little higher than the cost on base guardsmen.

With something like a vet crew, simplicity wise, a flat 10-15pts upgrade in the armoury section would be reasonable. If we were to get nitty-gritty, then arty should be paying less than a Punisher due to how BS affects those two weapons.

I actually couldn't agree more. My point is that I don't want another one of my armies to be the Guinea Pig for another general GW mess-around with balance.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Quintinus wrote:

The funny thing is, I'd believe that Mat Ward wrote it because the book was actually pretty fun to play once you got the hang of it. IMO Mat Ward was the best rules writer Games Workshop has had for a long while. He's the whole reason why all of the cool Rogue Trader and 2nd edition stuff like rad grenades, hallucinogen grenades, and other stuff came back. Was his stuff powerful? Sure, but I'd blame the other writers for not being on his level.

I would posit that when everything else is the problem...it usually isn't

Let's look at the other writers for 5th-6th edition.
Phil Kelly, who is an absolutely poor rules writer. His power levels vary far too much, from unkillable falcons to good-for-3-months Chaos Marines to unlimited-range Serpentshield spam. Most tend to be slightly higher on power level and dominate tournaments but have poor staying power and the worst internal balance of any author
Robin Cruddace, power levels are all over the place. Imperial Guard are extremely good, while Tyranids are horrible until formations come out for them
Jeremy Vetock, power levels are all over the place. Beginning to see a trend here? Writes the underpowered mess Dark Angels, while also managing to whip up the Tau codex (which I admittedly quite like)

Then Mat Ward, whose books were consistently high power level. But hey, he never did anything that was appalling such as 2++ rerollable invulnerable saves, 2 points for 6++ Mark of Tzeentch. 3++ stormshields were powerful but they actually made terminators worthwhile. Grey Knights were extremely good, 6th edition toned them down while making Necrons (for a short time) king of the pile, and still managed to compete very well. Keep in mind, I'm only focusing on 40k here.

His background may have been childish at times, like with Draigo, but at least it was something new and caused discussion. For every Draigo there was something cool like Sanguinor anyway.

Not everyone like the Sanguinor either, a lot of people thought that entire concept was terrible...

 Quintinus wrote:

Let's look at the other writers for 5th-6th edition.
Phil Kelly, who is an absolutely poor rules writer. His power levels vary far too much, from unkillable falcons to good-for-3-months Chaos Marines to unlimited-range Serpentshield spam. Most tend to be slightly higher on power level and dominate tournaments but have poor staying power and the worst internal balance of any author
Robin Cruddace, power levels are all over the place. Imperial Guard are extremely good, while Tyranids are horrible until formations come out for them
Jeremy Vetock, power levels are all over the place. Beginning to see a trend here? Writes the underpowered mess Dark Angels, while also managing to whip up the Tau codex (which I admittedly quite like)

Then Mat Ward, whose books were consistently high power level. But hey, he never did anything that was appalling such as 2++ rerollable invulnerable saves

Neither did anyone else really until after 5th edition, and they shortly stopped attributing authorship within like 8 or 9 months IIRC after 6E came out on codex books IIRC and Ward wasn't listed as author on anything after 5E.

2 points for 6++ Mark of Tzeentch. 3++ stormshields were powerful but they actually made terminators worthwhile. Grey Knights were extremely good, 6th edition toned them down while making Necrons (for a short time) king of the pile, and still managed to compete very well. Keep in mind, I'm only focusing on 40k here.

And he did that in large part by giving lots of factions everything and the kitchen sink. Look at the 5E blood angels book. They went from an army that was largely codex-adherent in nature with a focus on speed and close combat, to suddenly being the chapter that could field the most psykers (aside from GK's), field the most walkers, field the most heavy armor, got Fast on everything *and* still kept (and enhanced) its speed/assault bonuses.

Similarly, C:SM came out in 2008, it made every other SM book rather pointless to play in comparison, and every SM army I saw was "Vulkan+Hammernaters+tons of Melta" until Kelly's Space Wolves came out. I literally didn't see an SM army without Vulkan (and I think Hammernators too but I could be wrong there) for a full year.

I'm not saying any of GW's writers were perfect, they have never been, and your criticisms of the others are quite valid, but it's hard to say that Ward was so much better and the problems were all with everyone else.

The concept of an Imperial warp demon is FAR more interesting and original than anything Phil Kelly has ever come up with. Robin Cruddace made some cool characters too at least.

That's certainly the first time I've ever heard of the Sanguinor descried as such. Potentially a cool concept in theory, but really failed in the execution for many. Much like many tried to spin Draigo's tale into a tragic sisyphean one after the 2010 GK book, but wasn't exactly terribly what the average reader would have gotten from reading his fluff entry.

What did Phil Kelly do? Create wolfy mcwolfwolferson riding a wolf with his wolf claws?

Much like Ward's renaming of Dreadnought Close Combat Weapons to Blood Fists for no reason, and sillyness like Bloodstrike missiles, or the very name "Sanguinor"? Effectively "thing-that-color-of-blood", the same way a tormetor would be a "thing-that-torments"?

It was mentioned at a Games Day iirc, I'll see about finding it.

First time I've heard that. It's hard to ascribe specific mechanics like that to someone though when they're not mentioned in any credits or as an author. Not saying it's impossible, but never seen any proof or even heard rumor of it before today.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Quintinus wrote:

Let's look at the other writers for 5th-6th edition.
Phil Kelly, who is an absolutely poor rules writer. His power levels vary far too much, from unkillable falcons to good-for-3-months Chaos Marines to unlimited-range Serpentshield spam. Most tend to be slightly higher on power level and dominate tournaments but have poor staying power and the worst internal balance of any author
Robin Cruddace, power levels are all over the place. Imperial Guard are extremely good, while Tyranids are horrible until formations come out for them
Jeremy Vetock, power levels are all over the place. Beginning to see a trend here? Writes the underpowered mess Dark Angels, while also managing to whip up the Tau codex (which I admittedly quite like)

Then Mat Ward, whose books were consistently high power level. But hey, he never did anything that was appalling such as 2++ rerollable invulnerable saves

Neither did anyone else really until after 5th edition, and they shortly stopped attributing authorship within like 8 or 9 months IIRC after 6E came out on codex books IIRC and Ward wasn't listed as author on anything after 5E.

Still didn't refute my point, Mat Ward was overall a much more consistent writer and did more good things for the game than any other single writer.

2 points for 6++ Mark of Tzeentch. 3++ stormshields were powerful but they actually made terminators worthwhile. Grey Knights were extremely good, 6th edition toned them down while making Necrons (for a short time) king of the pile, and still managed to compete very well. Keep in mind, I'm only focusing on 40k here.

And he did that in large part by giving lots of factions everything and the kitchen sink. Look at the 5E blood angels book. They went from an army that was largely codex-adherent in nature with a focus on speed and close combat, to suddenly being the chapter that could field the most psykers (aside from GK's), field the most walkers, field the most heavy armor, got Fast on everything *and* still kept (and enhanced) its speed/assault bonuses.

Iirc Blood Angels already had a unique dreadnought (The Furioso), and a unique Predator. As for the most psykers, it makes sense - Sanguinious was a psyker. And hey, fluff changes - just ask the Black Templars and their new 1k chapter strength. I wouldn't say they had the kitchen sink.

Similarly, C:SM came out in 2008, it made every other SM book rather pointless to play in comparison, and every SM army I saw was "Vulkan+Hammernaters+tons of Melta" until Kelly's Space Wolves came out. I literally didn't see an SM army without Vulkan (and I think Hammernators too but I could be wrong there) for a full year.

I'm not saying any of GW's writers were perfect, they have never been, and your criticisms of the others are quite valid, but it's hard to say that Ward was so much better and the problems were all with everyone else.

Right, and after Space Wolves came out you didn't see anything except for Grey Hunter/Runepriest/Long Fang spam. Rather, C:SM made every Space Marine book "pointless" to play because they were so bad.

The concept of an Imperial warp demon is FAR more interesting and original than anything Phil Kelly has ever come up with. Robin Cruddace made some cool characters too at least.

That's certainly the first time I've ever heard of the Sanguinor descried as such. Potentially a cool concept in theory, but really failed in the execution for many. Much like many tried to spin Draigo's tale into a tragic sisyphean one after the 2010 GK book, but wasn't exactly terribly what the average reader would have gotten from reading his fluff entry.

What did Phil Kelly do? Create wolfy mcwolfwolferson riding a wolf with his wolf claws?

Much like Ward's renaming of Dreadnought Close Combat Weapons to Blood Fists for no reason, and sillyness like Bloodstrike missiles, or the very name "Sanguinor"? Effectively "thing-that-color-of-blood", the same way a tormetor would be a "thing-that-torments"?

Sanguinor is pretty obviously a spin-off of Sanguinius so I don't see what the deal is with that one, especially since he's purported perhaps to be the ghost of the primarch. Maybe I'm not an "average" reader though, I thought it was neat.
Blood Fists and Bloodstrike missiles are a bit silly, but really not close to Wolf Lord with Wolf Claws On Thunderwolf accompanied by Wolf Guard and Wolf Priest with Cyberwolves.

It was mentioned at a Games Day iirc, I'll see about finding it.

First time I've heard that. It's hard to ascribe specific mechanics like that to someone though when they're not mentioned in any credits or as an author. Not saying it's impossible, but never seen any proof or even heard rumor of it before today.

EDIT: Had a big reply written up, internet ate it, suffice to say I disagree but don't want to take it any more off topic or re-write it

I am having a lot of fun with the current book. But I am not competitive at all.

Formations would be nice to see. I want to see a horde formation with "send in the next wave" rule akin to the last dex, or similar to the tyranids " endless swarm" formation. That would be loads of fun!

Veteran crews for tanks would be cool, rather than bonus bs why not allow them to ignore crew shaken and crew stunned results? would be interesting change and fit with idea they been through and seen alot war

 sumi808 wrote:
Veteran crews for tanks would be cool, rather than bonus bs why not allow them to ignore crew shaken and crew stunned results? would be interesting change and fit with idea they been through and seen alot war

I would rather see genuine benefits for veteran vehicle crews than just "Bonus BS" or "Ignore Crew Shaken/Stunned".

It would be cool to see a veteran Demolisher crew getting some kind of benefit versus targets in fortifications, or a veteran Punisher crew being able to gain Skyfire for a turn, a veteran Vanquisher crew getting Strength D versus Monstrous Creatures, a veteran Sentinel pilot getting some kind of unique ability, etc etc.

What I think they may do is duplicate the Mechanicus Canticles and give a series of orders the effectiveness of which depends on the number of infantry squads on the table.

Which would have the side effect of encouraging people to buy lots of models.

These are mostly great ideas so far, some further ones that I have, mostly ideas for new units, as almost everything has been said for modyfing old units.
-Have a medium tank that is a regular tank. This was suggested earlier, and I think it's a good idea. Make it a repulse tank with 13/11/10 armor to give the guard some speed. Turret options suh as TL Autocannon or Lascannon, I can't think of any real unique weapons at the moment.
-Minefields 10-20 points apiece for a minefield around as big as an Aegis defense lines long section. Enemy units moving over it take D6 S4 AP 4 hits for every ten models in anti-personal minefield, AT ones cause non-Skimmer vehicles to take one S8 AP 2 hit on the rear armor that auto-immobilizes on a 5+. Can only have a maximum of one for every other fortification on the field. Give the Guard three-four fortification slots.
-Combat Engineers. Come with Shotguns stock. Can Bolster Defenses. Can take new special weapon Spigot Launchers(still working on rules. Mortar style explosion that reduces terrain cover saves by one). Can take Demo-Charges, melta-bombs, and specialized grenades.
-Snipers, in either squad or character form or both. Character would be like Enginseers or Preists. Both should have Infiltrate, Move Through Cover and Camo-Cloaks default. Squad should have BS 4, character BS 5.
-Medics. Either have attachable elites section or allow all squads to grab a medkit.
-Trenches, around 20 pts each, only 5+ cover.
These are just rough ideas, I'll add more as I finish designs them.

 saithor wrote:
-Have a medium tank that is a regular tank. This was suggested earlier, and I think it's a good idea. Make it a repulse tank with 13/11/10 armor to give the guard some speed. Turret options suh as TL Autocannon or Lascannon, I can't think of any real unique weapons at the moment.

We already have the chassis in the form of the Hellhound variants. 12/12/10 Fast is a perfect medium tank. Just keep the Hellhounds to their template/blast weapons, then add a second variant with, as you said, autocannons, lascannons, and a vanquisher style cannon.

Hell, you could even make them into a Razorback-esque vehicle with a reduced passenger capacity for things like command squads.

But now I'm dreaming.

Alcibiades wrote:
What I think they may do is duplicate the Mechanicus Canticles and give a series of orders the effectiveness of which depends on the number of infantry squads on the table.

Which would have the side effect of encouraging people to buy lots of models.

Or you could take the more common sense approach and have them using the Doctrina Imperatives that Skitarii have.

Mechanicus Canticles really aren't impressive outside of the formations where Skitarii units count for them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 saithor wrote:
These are mostly great ideas so far, some further ones that I have, mostly ideas for new units, as almost everything has been said for modyfing old units.
-Have a medium tank that is a regular tank. This was suggested earlier, and I think it's a good idea. Make it a repulse tank with 13/11/10 armor to give the guard some speed. Turret options suh as TL Autocannon or Lascannon, I can't think of any real unique weapons at the moment.

Ew, no. The Guard doesn't need speed. We don't need a medium tank--we need our heavy tanks to actually be worth taking. Adding a new vehicle to the mix doesn't fix that issue, it just adds something to distract from the issue.

-Minefields 10-20 points apiece for a minefield around as big as an Aegis defense lines long section. Enemy units moving over it take D6 S4 AP 4 hits for every ten models in anti-personal minefield, AT ones cause non-Skimmer vehicles to take one S8 AP 2 hit on the rear armor that auto-immobilizes on a 5+. Can only have a maximum of one for every other fortification on the field. Give the Guard three-four fortification slots.

AT mines not affecting skimmer vehicles can make them effectively useless.

-Combat Engineers. Come with Shotguns stock. Can Bolster Defenses. Can take new special weapon Spigot Launchers(still working on rules. Mortar style explosion that reduces terrain cover saves by one). Can take Demo-Charges, melta-bombs, and specialized grenades.

Or they come with Lasguns stock, this isn't DKoK. The reason their Combat Engineers came with Shotguns is because they're intended to accompany their little mining device.

Bolster Defenses is "eh". I would rather see them have the ability to deploy a Tarantula Sentry Battery and/or the ability to boobytrap fortifications. Maybe give them the Ground Scanners that FW put out as well.

-Snipers, in either squad or character form or both. Character would be like Enginseers or Preists. Both should have Infiltrate, Move Through Cover and Camo-Cloaks default. Squad should have BS 4, character BS 5.

Said it before, saying it again.

Dedicated sniper teams with what effectively is a stripped down lascannon. Spotter allows for rerolls on either hits, wounds, or armor pen.
Additionally allow for Spotters to reduce the scatter for Ordnance or Barrage weapons being fired indirectly.

-Medics. Either have attachable elites section or allow all squads to grab a medkit.

Why Elites? That's just kinda silly given how already crowded that section is.
A Platoon or Company option for a Medicae Detachment ala Regimental Advisors, divided up into CCS->PCS->MTCS->MTS->HVS->IS would be far better especially giving the likelihood of a sliding scale for the detachment.

-Trenches, around 20 pts each, only 5+ cover.
These are just rough ideas, I'll add more as I finish designs them.

They're not bad ideas--so please don't think I'm ripping on you just for fun or anything. I think some of the ideas could use finessing but at the same time some of it just circles around the whole issue of "Let's add X instead of fixing Y".

The trenches are a good idea but I like the Medium Tank and Sniper ones the best.

A Medium Tank should be something like the Panzer IV to the Leman Russ's Tiger. The armour should be week and they should not be fast. Currently a LR moves 6" so a regular tank with an AV of 12-13/11/10 and a move of 12" should be good enough. Its weapons should be similar to the Leman Russ for the most part, a lighter version of the Battlecannon and Vanquisher cannon for the basic variants, a Lascannon, an Autocannon with 4 shots and a longer range, a lighter version of the Punisher with less shots, etc. Hull mounted Heavy Stubbers are a must.

The Snipers are a great idea, maybe allow 1-4 to be purchased as a single Elites slot.

 master of ordinance wrote:

A Medium Tank should be something like the Panzer IV to the Leman Russ's Tiger. The armour should be week and they should not be fast. Currently a LR moves 6" so a regular tank with an AV of 12-13/11/10 and a move of 12" should be good enough. Its weapons should be similar to the Leman Russ for the most part, a lighter version of the Battlecannon and Vanquisher cannon for the basic variants, a Lascannon, an Autocannon with 4 shots and a longer range, a lighter version of the Punisher with less shots, etc. Hull mounted Heavy Stubbers are a must.

Again, this isn't fixing any of the actual issues with the Leman Russ. It needs to be a Tiger before we start throwing in a Panzer IV.

Before we start adding more vehicles that are very likely to be woefully underpar, let's get the Leman Russ up to a reasonable place.

I would rather have 13+ av12 65pts medium tanks armed with auto cannons, then 140 ore more pts heavy lemman russes that do nothing because they are blast.

Leman russes are actually pretty good they just need two rules changes. Lumbering behemoth back so ordinance doesn't make everything snap fire and better priced sponsons.

Give them a few decent formations and give the army access to more interceptor based weapons and the Russ becomes a scary tank again.

But mostly the guard just lack decorian style list building and a ton of formation bonuses. There are also units I'd like to personally adjust and many ideas here are good but the main problem is guards are still a 6th edition codex where 7th edition codexs are the most powerful because of all the formation bonuses.

gungo wrote:
Leman russes are actually pretty good they just need two rules changes. Lumbering behemoth back so ordinance doesn't make everything snap fire and better priced sponsons.

Give them a few decent formations and give the army access to more interceptor based weapons and the Russ becomes a scary tank again.

But mostly the guard just lack decorian style list building and a ton of formation bonuses. There are also units I'd like to personally adjust and many ideas here are good but the main problem is guards are still a 6th edition codex where 7th edition codexs are the most powerful because of all the formation bonuses.

That's not remotely true as to why Guard struggle. Tau aren't a 7th edition book and they're still plenty powerful. Eldar were powerful even before their recent upgrade despite not being a 7th edition book.

It's not the lack of a unique FOC and formations, it's just a bad book with shoddy internal/external balance. It holds up just fine against, say, CSM or Orks but against anything else it struggles beyond any rational metric.

Kanluwen wrote:

gungo wrote:
Leman russes are actually pretty good they just need two rules changes. Lumbering behemoth back so ordinance doesn't make everything snap fire and better priced sponsons.

Give them a few decent formations and give the army access to more interceptor based weapons and the Russ becomes a scary tank again.

But mostly the guard just lack decorian style list building and a ton of formation bonuses. There are also units I'd like to personally adjust and many ideas here are good but the main problem is guards are still a 6th edition codex where 7th edition codexs are the most powerful because of all the formation bonuses.

That's not remotely true as to why Guard struggle. Tau aren't a 7th edition book and they're still plenty powerful. Eldar were powerful even before their recent upgrade despite not being a 7th edition book.

It's not the lack of a unique FOC and formations, it's just a bad book with shoddy internal/external balance. It holds up just fine against, say, CSM or Orks but against anything else it struggles beyond any rational metric.

Ugh, this time one hundred. Especially when you consider the limited (5 to 6) number of actually valid choices we have (and even some of these are debatable).

Makumba wrote:I would rather have 13+ av12 65pts medium tanks armed with auto cannons, then 140 ore more pts heavy lemman russes that do nothing because they are blast.

Aye, the problem is that the Leman Russ is just too expensive to be a desirable choice if faced with other options.

Kanluwen wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

A Medium Tank should be something like the Panzer IV to the Leman Russ's Tiger. The armour should be week and they should not be fast. Currently a LR moves 6" so a regular tank with an AV of 12-13/11/10 and a move of 12" should be good enough. Its weapons should be similar to the Leman Russ for the most part, a lighter version of the Battlecannon and Vanquisher cannon for the basic variants, a Lascannon, an Autocannon with 4 shots and a longer range, a lighter version of the Punisher with less shots, etc. Hull mounted Heavy Stubbers are a must.

Again, this isn't fixing any of the actual issues with the Leman Russ. It needs to be a Tiger before we start throwing in a Panzer IV.

Before we start adding more vehicles that are very likely to be woefully underpar, let's get the Leman Russ up to a reasonable place.

Yep, the Leman Russ needs a major buff. Being cheaper, another HP and some buffs and extra weapons, especially free coaxial Heavy Stubbers, are in dire need.

 Kanluwen wrote:

gungo wrote:
Leman russes are actually pretty good they just need two rules changes. Lumbering behemoth back so ordinance doesn't make everything snap fire and better priced sponsons.

Give them a few decent formations and give the army access to more interceptor based weapons and the Russ becomes a scary tank again.

But mostly the guard just lack decorian style list building and a ton of formation bonuses. There are also units I'd like to personally adjust and many ideas here are good but the main problem is guards are still a 6th edition codex where 7th edition codexs are the most powerful because of all the formation bonuses.

That's not remotely true as to why Guard struggle. Tau aren't a 7th edition book and they're still plenty powerful. Eldar were powerful even before their recent upgrade despite not being a 7th edition book.

It's not the lack of a unique FOC and formations, it's just a bad book with shoddy internal/external balance. It holds up just fine against, say, CSM or Orks but against anything else it struggles beyond any rational metric.

I agree. Some older codexes were working fine with all the new stuff around. Including my own the Tau. The AM need a drastic overhaul. Perhaps there will be an in lore "Marian" reforms to the regiments to make them more effective fighting force. Combined with some new gear/tech from an STC would be a good lore reason to reform what the AM is and have it make sense.

 master of ordinance wrote:

Yep, the Leman Russ needs a major buff.

Agreed. I think the problem is that a lot of people (mainly those who don't play IG) *think* LR tanks are good. I'm not sure why - maybe because they're the cheapest AV14 vehicles, or perhaps because they remember that LRs used to be strong, and think they still are.

Trouble is, whilst LR tanks might have been strong in the past, the game has moved on since then. Unfortunately, the LRs haven't.

In fact, the ordnance varieties got significantly worse. But, even aside from that, most of their weapons just aren't good. It seems that they're either under-specialised (autocannons, the punisher without Pask, the heavy bolters they all come with etc.) or over-specialised... and still rubbish (is any tank really afraid of the vanquisher?). Then there's issues like plasma cannons having a fatal design flaw. AV14 means jack when you can die simply from firing your own weapons (made even more tragic because plasma cannons are about the only LR weapon that's even vaguely competent). We don't even have the advantage of squadrons anymore, because a) FoCs are a joke (so it's not like it's a useful bonus), and b) several elite races have been handed vehicle squadrons anyway.

About the only advantage LRs have over the tanks of other armies is AV14... in an edition where races can have D-weapons in standard games, multiple-shot haywire guns on basic troops etc.

Alcibiades wrote:
BS 4 (or any 4 stat) in 40K is generally reserved for the extremely well trained or experienced.

Because the system does not have enough granularity.

All I want to see is the return of Vox Network in some form.

Currently Vox Casters work merely as megaphones...

 Kanluwen wrote:

Ew, no. The Guard doesn't need speed. We don't need a medium tank--we need our heavy tanks to actually be worth taking. Adding a new vehicle to the mix doesn't fix that issue, it just adds something to distract from the issue.

We already have Hellhounds, and in an objective based game slow moving isn't going to help us out as much.

 Kanluwen wrote:

AT mines not affecting skimmer vehicles can make them effectively useless.

Yeah, I realized this after posting, they can affect Vehicles as well. Thinking S8 AP2, hits rear armor, if it pens on a 4+ is immobilized

 Kanluwen wrote:
Or they come with Lasguns stock, this isn't DKoK. The reason their Combat Engineers came with Shotguns is because they're intended to accompany their little mining device.

Bolster Defenses is "eh". I would rather see them have the ability to deploy a Tarantula Sentry Battery and/or the ability to boobytrap fortifications. Maybe give them the Ground Scanners that FW put out as well.

I'll work on that. I was actually going for a more demo/chemical weapons close quarters group with specialized grenades, Spigot Launchers, and other specialized gear.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Said it before, saying it again.

Dedicated sniper teams with what effectively is a stripped down lascannon. Spotter allows for rerolls on either hits, wounds, or armor pen.
Additionally allow for Spotters to reduce the scatter for Ordnance or Barrage weapons being fired indirectly.

Combine the two into one. The debate is squad vs. character, as a sniper is more of a character role, but it probably will jsut come off as a worse, cheap Vindicare. Recon Squads for spottign, have already started cracking

 Kanluwen wrote:
Why Elites? That's just kinda silly given how already crowded that section is.
A Platoon or Company option for a Medicae Detachment ala Regimental Advisors, divided up into CCS->PCS->MTCS->MTS->HVS->IS would be far better especially giving the likelihood of a sliding scale for the detachment.

I also said upgrade for squad, which I think is the better option. The reason I mentioned elites is because he Millitia 30k list was on my mind

 Kanluwen wrote:
They're not bad ideas--so please don't think I'm ripping on you just for fun or anything. I think some of the ideas could use finessing but at the same time some of it just circles around the whole issue of "Let's add X instead of fixing Y".

I want to fix Y as well, and actually made my own suggestions in earlier posts, but it's been discussed so much I wanted to offer some posts considering other ideas. New units are rare for guard, with us losing several in return for only two (Wyvern and Bullgryn) so new units would be welcome. Also I'm looing for cheap feedback on my homebrew Steel Legion Codex

 Kanluwen wrote:

Again, this isn't fixing any of the actual issues with the Leman Russ. It needs to be a Tiger before we start throwing in a Panzer IV.

Before we start adding more vehicles that are very likely to be woefully underpar, let's get the Leman Russ up to a reasonable place.

I was just throwing in some new possible units. People have already thrown in tons of suggestions for how to improve the ruses, so I decided to try another route for improving the codex. Those are just gneneral ideas, I have more specific ideas coming.

 master of ordinance wrote:
A Medium Tank should be something like the Panzer IV to the Leman Russ's Tiger. The armour should be week and they should not be fast. Currently a LR moves 6" so a regular tank with an AV of 12-13/11/10 and a move of 12" should be good enough. Its weapons should be similar to the Leman Russ for the most part, a lighter version of the Battlecannon and Vanquisher cannon for the basic variants, a Lascannon, an Autocannon with 4 shots and a longer range, a lighter version of the Punisher with less shots, etc. Hull mounted Heavy Stubbers are a must.

Problem is thats a lighter version of the Leman Russ just makes them a cheaper Russ, which is what people want the current russ to be. I'm working on possible weapon systems that could be used. Also, it should be able to carry Assualt Cannons, TL or single. I never got why those are only in the realm of the SM.

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
All I want to see is the return of Vox Network in some form.

Currently Vox Casters work merely as megaphones...

Agreed, it's stupid, it's not how radios work at all. Infinite ranged orders would be better between vox units. Allow Voxes for tanks so that Tanks can get orders from CCS as well.

Better Range of Orders.

FRFSRF working on all weapons shot instead of just lasguns would be cool though possible a little OP

Also would rather see orders and senior orders combine together and get a general points increase/balance if that was the case so that orders are slightly more accessible.

 Desubot wrote:
Better Range of Orders.

FRFSRF working on all weapons shot instead of just lasguns would be cool though possible a little OP

I immediately thought of command squads with quad meltas using this, thinking "man, 8 BS4 melta shots would be really ridiculous".

Then I remembered Skitarii can double-tap BS5/6/7 Haywire guns without having to worry about getting off an Ld test to do so..

I think when the game has gotten to the point where one has to actually pause to think if being able to double melta shots like that would be overpowered, something has gone terribly wrong with the rest of the game...

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Better Range of Orders.

FRFSRF working on all weapons shot instead of just lasguns would be cool though possible a little OP

I immediately thought of command squads with quad meltas using this, thinking "man, 8 BS4 melta shots would be really ridiculous".

Then I remembered Skitarii can double-tap BS5/6/7 Haywire guns without having to worry about getting off an Ld test to do so..

I think when the game has gotten to the point where one has to actually pause to think if being able to double melta shots like that would be overpowered, something has gone terribly wrong with the rest of the game...

Isn't that what happens every time GW releases a new edition?

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Better Range of Orders.

FRFSRF working on all weapons shot instead of just lasguns would be cool though possible a little OP

I immediately thought of command squads with quad meltas using this, thinking "man, 8 BS4 melta shots would be really ridiculous".

Then I remembered Skitarii can double-tap BS5/6/7 Haywire guns without having to worry about getting off an Ld test to do so..

I think when the game has gotten to the point where one has to actually pause to think if being able to double melta shots like that would be overpowered, something has gone terribly wrong with the rest of the game...

The power creep certainly has gotten insane.

 vipoid wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Yep, the Leman Russ needs a major buff.

Agreed. I think the problem is that a lot of people (mainly those who don't play IG) *think* LR tanks are good. I'm not sure why - maybe because they're the cheapest AV14 vehicles, or perhaps because they remember that LRs used to be strong, and think they still are.

Trouble is, whilst LR tanks might have been strong in the past, the game has moved on since then. Unfortunately, the LRs haven't.

In fact, the ordnance varieties got significantly worse. But, even aside from that, most of their weapons just aren't good. It seems that they're either under-specialised (autocannons, the punisher without Pask, the heavy bolters they all come with etc.) or over-specialised... and still rubbish (is any tank really afraid of the vanquisher?). Then there's issues like plasma cannons having a fatal design flaw. AV14 means jack when you can die simply from firing your own weapons (made even more tragic because plasma cannons are about the only LR weapon that's even vaguely competent). We don't even have the advantage of squadrons anymore, because a) FoCs are a joke (so it's not like it's a useful bonus), and b) several elite races have been handed vehicle squadrons anyway.

About the only advantage LRs have over the tanks of other armies is AV14... in an edition where races can have D-weapons in standard games, multiple-shot haywire guns on basic troops etc.

Leman Russes need some sort of jink equivelent and a hull point upgrade. These are supposed to be massive, slow, frontline war machines, the idea that they can be wiped out as easipy as they are is absurd. BS4 should come standard as it should be easier for a tank gunner to aim than a footsoldier. Hull points should increase to 4 or 5 as well.

If not, a massive points drop is needed for it to be somewhat competitive in its current state.

 triplegrim wrote:


9. Baneblades will probably be in the main codex. Would at least give us a more standard LoW.

Looking at how other codexes have been doing LoW options, Creed will be our LoW next.
I hope for a Beihnblehd, but I get the feeling that would be expecting too much of GW. Their reasoning will be that the SH LoW options are all tidily available in the Escalation book. For the low, low price of all your cash.

I would like to see better tank formation choices that the Steel Host. SH is nice, but it's a little restrictive, and it forces you to take a Hydra.
A Baneblade escort formation would be nice.

Example:

1x Baneblade Variant
1x Tank Commander Squadrons
2-6 Leman Russ Squadrons
0-3 Sentinel Squadrons

Formation Rule: While the Baneblade is alive, all units from this formation within 18" of the Baneblade gain Pinning, Fleshbane and Armourbane on each of their attacks. [Possibly also Fear.]

 Blacksails wrote:
There's more to a unit than its gun.

A 33% price increase is ridiculous.

A mere 10 points is even more ridiculous. That is so cheap as to be automatic, which defeats the point of IG being a basic human force.

Guard should be the WORST basic troopers in the galaxy. Period. They are mere humans against everything else. The reason Guard exist is to make everyone else look good. BS4 should be EXTREMELY RARE, and expensive. A human shooting as well as a augmented super soldier Space Marine or hypertwich Eldar is ridiculous. Offensive, really.

40-50 points is a good number, because it keeps BS4 very rare, truly exceptional.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blacksails wrote:
We already have the chassis in the form of the Hellhound variants. 12/12/10 Fast is a perfect medium tank.

Agree. The Hellhound chassis is a Cruiser Tank, faster but lighter than the Leman Russ heavy tank chassis.


Quite frankly, all this talk of buffing things for the sake of buffing is annoying. The Imperial Guard have great tools, and just need some price fixes. Not power upgrades.

Save the bumps for the IG Formation, not for the units.

I already have a massive Eldar army for BS4 S3 T3. Also Sisters. And Stormtroopers. The last thing I want is Guard "improved" to be like Eldar / Sisters / Stormtroopers.

With any luck GW will standardize down to BS3 WS2 S3 T3 (BS2 Conscripts, BS4 Ratlings, BS2 WS4 Ogyns) just like how Necrons got RPs and Sv dropped to be different from Space Marines.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Guard should be the WORST basic troopers in the galaxy. Period. They are mere humans against everything else. The reason Guard exist is to make everyone else look good. BS4 should be EXTREMELY RARE, and expensive. A human shooting as well as a augmented super soldier Space Marine or hypertwich Eldar is ridiculous. Offensive, really.

40-50 points is a good number, because it keeps BS4 very rare, truly exceptional.

Why should guard be the worst basic troopers?

They're your average humans, but they're (fairly) well trained and equipped in very much the same vein as today's soldiers - as good as you can get without spending too much. The fact that there are things like Conscripts, Grotz, Cultists, and Renegades and Heretics (forgeworld) goes to show you that your average guardsmen isn't actually poorly trained or shittily equipped, he'd just not elite.

And BS4 is not "rare" or "truly exceptional". FFS Orks can get to BS3 if they have a have a glorified red-dot sight and take the time to look through it rather just shooting from the hip in the enemies general direction. BS4 isn't much better than that - it's basically just well trained and having a firm grasp of how your weapon will react to distance and the environment (wind).

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
There's more to a unit than its gun.

A 33% price increase is ridiculous.

A mere 10 points is even more ridiculous. That is so cheap as to be automatic, which defeats the point of IG being a basic human force.

Guard should be the WORST basic troopers in the galaxy. Period.

Huh? Worse than Grots?

They're not supposed to be ultra elite, but there are very definitely things that a guardsmen should be both better equipped and stat'd than. We're talking generally well trained human troops (not poorly trained conscripts, who have their own unit entry), some of whom have been exposed to military training their entire lives. There also have always been IG units that have been portrayed as very well trained and lavishly equipped, and, depending on the reigning GW design paradigm of the time, has sometimes been portrayed in the rules (e.g. all Cadians in 3E/4E were effectively BS "3.5").

. A human shooting as well as a augmented super soldier Space Marine or hypertwich Eldar is ridiculous. Offensive, really.

If you're offended over that, I don't know what to say. However, there have been BS4 guardsmen in every single edition of 40k ever.


Also remember basic Eldar, aside from Aspect Warriors & characters, were all WS3/BS3 for more than 90% of 40k's existence until they decided to change that very recently and to some degree of controversy. Humans weren't *that* far down the totem pole.

40-50 points is a good number, because it keeps BS4 very rare, truly exceptional.

Points costs are there to reflect the tabletop value of a unit, not to reflect background rarity. Otherwise a Tactical Marine would be 800,000,000 points next to a basic Guardsmen, and is why pricing things that way is terrible game design. 10pts would be an entirely appropriate points cost in terms of reflective tabletop value on many units, particularly those that rely single shot weapons and don't properly function within the current ruleset (e.g. Vanquishers).

EDIT: as a further point, I think it's time to start looking beyond stats as simple faction defining features. Even 70 year old tanks with crews that only had a few weeks training could hit targets hundreds of meters away with great accuracy, modern tanks moving at highway speeds can hit another moving target at a couple thousand meters away with 90%+ success rates.

Other games don't typically treat to-hit ability as a faction specific trait. Flames of War deals with to-hit rates depending on the opposing army's veterancy. Any conscript can be taught how to shoot modern weapons with some competency fairly quickly, it's up to the foe to make themselves hard to hit, and thus a Veteran enemy is very difficult to hit (knowing how to move from cover to cover, when to make their move, how to cover each other, etc) and sometimes even impossible to hit, while conscripts bumbling around in the open running human wave attacks are hit on 2's even by other conscripts.

Or one can look at something like Dropzone Commander, where to-hit rolls are generally weapon specific, with the "IG" style faction having just as many "hit on 2+" weapons as even the advanced cyborg humans and hyper-capable aliens, with similar power weapons, but don't necessarily have the same specialized support abilities or things like energy forcefields or blistering speed or raw resiliency.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
There's more to a unit than its gun.

A 33% price increase is ridiculous.

A mere 10 points is even more ridiculous. That is so cheap as to be automatic, which defeats the point of IG being a basic human force.

Guard should be the WORST basic troopers in the galaxy. Period. They are mere humans against everything else. The reason Guard exist is to make everyone else look good. BS4 should be EXTREMELY RARE, and expensive. A human shooting as well as a augmented super soldier Space Marine or hypertwich Eldar is ridiculous. Offensive, really.

40-50 points is a good number, because it keeps BS4 very rare, truly exceptional.

A BS4 upgrade at that cost is NEVER worth it in the IG. I agree that it should be rare, but not that it should cost waaay more than it's worth.
Keep the BS4 handouts as they are - Veteran squads and HQ choices.

 Signet-Powers wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Yep, the Leman Russ needs a major buff.

Agreed. I think the problem is that a lot of people (mainly those who don't play IG) *think* LR tanks are good. I'm not sure why - maybe because they're the cheapest AV14 vehicles, or perhaps because they remember that LRs used to be strong, and think they still are.

Trouble is, whilst LR tanks might have been strong in the past, the game has moved on since then. Unfortunately, the LRs haven't.

In fact, the ordnance varieties got significantly worse. But, even aside from that, most of their weapons just aren't good. It seems that they're either under-specialised (autocannons, the punisher without Pask, the heavy bolters they all come with etc.) or over-specialised... and still rubbish (is any tank really afraid of the vanquisher?). Then there's issues like plasma cannons having a fatal design flaw. AV14 means jack when you can die simply from firing your own weapons (made even more tragic because plasma cannons are about the only LR weapon that's even vaguely competent). We don't even have the advantage of squadrons anymore, because a) FoCs are a joke (so it's not like it's a useful bonus), and b) several elite races have been handed vehicle squadrons anyway.

About the only advantage LRs have over the tanks of other armies is AV14... in an edition where races can have D-weapons in standard games, multiple-shot haywire guns on basic troops etc.

Leman Russes need some sort of jink equivelent and a hull point upgrade. These are supposed to be massive, slow, frontline war machines, the idea that they can be wiped out as easipy as they are is absurd. BS4 should come standard as it should be easier for a tank gunner to aim than a footsoldier. Hull points should increase to 4 or 5 as well.

If not, a massive points drop is needed for it to be somewhat competitive in its current state.

Actually they dont need a HP upgrade, GW needs to get rid of the bloody HP system all together. But if we cannot have that then I will settle with 4 to 5HP. For now.
One of my biggest pet peaves is how people seem to think that a Leman Russ is nigh on invincible and even broken. Sure, they used to be tough. Not anymore though and 150 points for a cannon and a Heavy Bolter is just too much, especially when the rear armour is so weak that thy can be boltered to death within the space of a single turn by a squad of Marines. And failing that almost any basic Infantry unit is glancing them on 4's with Krak Grenades. Sure, tanks should be vulnerable to close assault but thanks to the HP system they are far too vulnerable. If it is going to remain in place then perhaps we need to go back to the third editions methods of resolving assaults against vehicles whereby the armour value of the facing side was used (so if you assaulted the front then you where trying to penetrate the frontal armour with those Krak grenades, not the rear)

I think that everyone here remembers the time a few weeks back when I started a thread because a friend of mine wanted to neuter my army by limiting the number of tanks I could bring. Apparently my Leman Russ where OP because they ignored his basic Marines armour saves. Well, two of them did anyway. And only with their main guns. And the frontal armour is really OP levels of tough because his Missile Launcher Devastators could not penetrate it. Sadly it as yet to occur to him to flank them, or to stop trying to just bumrush the tanks (which I always dig in) and actually try to use cover.... Well I do tell a lie, he has started using cover more in the last few games. Probably something about me turning up with 7 tanks when he tried to limit me to three.....
I should also note that he sees nothing wrong with the Land Raider, an AV14/14/14 BS4 2 TL Lascannon 1 TL Heavy Bolter with POTM and a 12 man capacity that costs a mere 50 points more than the Leman Russ. Or his most basic weapon ignoring my Infantries armour
Or for that matter to turning up with close to 3000 points in a game that was meant to be 1500 points (didnt help him though)
Or turning up with a Primarch when we had agreed on no LoW choices (still didnt help him)
But those are other issues.

The point is that the Leman Russ needs a massive buff and a reduction in points to bring it back to its old position, as a slow moving but scary focus point around which the rest of the army can assemble.

Oh and JohnHwang DD, I completely disagree with you. We have veteran infantry at BS4 so why should our tank crews, whom owing to their tank and its great big thick armour plates, have a far higher survivability ratio and thus would find it even easier to achieve veteran status? Veteran tanks at BS4 are something that we most definitely need and 10 points is a fair cost for this.

Besides, why should the IG be shittier than other Infantry? What about Grots? Or Conscripts? Or Cultists?
Hell, we should be around the level of basic Eldar Infantry in terms of training or at least BS.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

A mere 10 points is even more ridiculous. That is so cheap as to be automatic, which defeats the point of IG being a basic human force.

Guard should be the WORST basic troopers in the galaxy. Period. They are mere humans against everything else. The reason Guard exist is to make everyone else look good. BS4 should be EXTREMELY RARE, and expensive. A human shooting as well as a augmented super soldier Space Marine or hypertwich Eldar is ridiculous. Offensive, really.

40-50 points is a good number, because it keeps BS4 very rare, truly exceptional.

Two things.

The system isn't granular enough to represent the differences in a vet or stormtrooper vs an Eldar Guardian or Space Marine. Thus, BS4 represents any unit that is considered significantly better than the baseline of BS3. For Guard, that happens to be vets who have survived years of frontline combat, and stormies, who are trained from nearly birth to be the ultimate, non-genetically modified human soldier. If the system operated on a D10, 20, or 100, then yes, there would be a difference between vets and marines.

The second thing is that points shouldn't be representing the fluffy rareness of something. Points exist to create a balanced selection of units in a game where the player can customize their force. It should be readily apparent to you that if we used points to indicate how rare something is, Marines wouldn't be a playable force, as pointed earlier in this thread.

So no, 40-50 is not a good number. Its a terrible number based on some poor premises that don't do anything positive for the game. A 10pts upgrade represents a good cost for most vehicles on top of their base price for people who want to play a more elite feeling Guard regiment, which is as fluffy and appropriate as any other force.

 Blacksails wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

A mere 10 points is even more ridiculous. That is so cheap as to be automatic, which defeats the point of IG being a basic human force.

Guard should be the WORST basic troopers in the galaxy. Period. They are mere humans against everything else. The reason Guard exist is to make everyone else look good. BS4 should be EXTREMELY RARE, and expensive. A human shooting as well as a augmented super soldier Space Marine or hypertwich Eldar is ridiculous. Offensive, really.

40-50 points is a good number, because it keeps BS4 very rare, truly exceptional.

Two things.

The system isn't granular enough to represent the differences in a vet or stormtrooper vs an Eldar Guardian or Space Marine. Thus, BS4 represents any unit that is considered significantly better than the baseline of BS3. For Guard, that happens to be vets who have survived years of frontline combat, and stormies, who are trained from nearly birth to be the ultimate, non-genetically modified human soldier. If the system operated on a D10, 20, or 100, then yes, there would be a difference between vets and marines.

The second thing is that points shouldn't be representing the fluffy rareness of something. Points exist to create a balanced selection of units in a game where the player can customize their force. It should be readily apparent to you that if we used points to indicate how rare something is, Marines wouldn't be a playable force, as pointed earlier in this thread.

So no, 40-50 is not a good number. Its a terrible number based on some poor premises that don't do anything positive for the game. A 10pts upgrade represents a good cost for most vehicles on top of their base price for people who want to play a more elite feeling Guard regiment, which is as fluffy and appropriate as any other force.

I can't add much to this. There are basically only three options for BS: 2,3,4. That makes it very challenging when assigning veteran humans vs spess mahreens. I'm with BS 4 humans, because the whole spess mahreen thing is kinda stupid anyway.

 master of ordinance wrote:

Actually they dont need a HP upgrade, GW needs to get rid of the bloody HP system all together. But if we cannot have that then I will settle with 4 to 5HP. For now.
One of my biggest pet peaves is how people seem to think that a Leman Russ is nigh on invincible and even broken. Sure, they used to be tough. Not anymore though and 150 points for a cannon and a Heavy Bolter is just too much, especially when the rear armour is so weak that thy can be boltered to death within the space of a single turn by a squad of Marines. And failing that almost any basic Infantry unit is glancing them on 4's with Krak Grenades. Sure, tanks should be vulnerable to close assault but thanks to the HP system they are far too vulnerable. If it is going to remain in place then perhaps we need to go back to the third editions methods of resolving assaults against vehicles whereby the armour value of the facing side was used (so if you assaulted the front then you where trying to penetrate the frontal armour with those Krak grenades, not the rear)

I think that everyone here remembers the time a few weeks back when I started a thread because a friend of mine wanted to neuter my army by limiting the number of tanks I could bring. Apparently my Leman Russ where OP because they ignored his basic Marines armour saves. Well, two of them did anyway. And only with their main guns. And the frontal armour is really OP levels of tough because his Missile Launcher Devastators could not penetrate it. Sadly it as yet to occur to him to flank them, or to stop trying to just bumrush the tanks (which I always dig in) and actually try to use cover.... Well I do tell a lie, he has started using cover more in the last few games. Probably something about me turning up with 7 tanks when he tried to limit me to three.....
I should also note that he sees nothing wrong with the Land Raider, an AV14/14/14 BS4 2 TL Lascannon 1 TL Heavy Bolter with POTM and a 12 man capacity that costs a mere 50 points more than the Leman Russ. Or his most basic weapon ignoring my Infantries armour
Or for that matter to turning up with close to 3000 points in a game that was meant to be 1500 points (didnt help him though)
Or turning up with a Primarch when we had agreed on no LoW choices (still didnt help him)
But those are other issues.

The point is that the Leman Russ needs a massive buff and a reduction in points to bring it back to its old position, as a slow moving but scary focus point around which the rest of the army can assemble.

Oh and JohnHwang DD, I completely disagree with you. We have veteran infantry at BS4 so why should our tank crews, whom owing to their tank and its great big thick armour plates, have a far higher survivability ratio and thus would find it even easier to achieve veteran status? Veteran tanks at BS4 are something that we most definitely need and 10 points is a fair cost for this.

Besides, why should the IG be shittier than other Infantry? What about Grots? Or Conscripts? Or Cultists?
Hell, we should be around the level of basic Eldar Infantry in terms of training or at least BS.

Please oh please do not hat me for this, but I actually kind of like the idea of the HP system. I don't know why, I just sort of do. Not as it is, with all the Haywire/Gauss/Grav/etc. it's broken, but I liked the basic idea behind it. Where the screwed up is with all the auto-glance weapons, and the HP values assinged, which makes little to no sense. Chimera's and Hellhound have the same HP as a Leman Russ? Land Radiers have more? Yeah they screwed the delivery of it up, but I actually find the system sort of interesting. Maybe because I entered on the tail-end of 5th and haven't experienced any other form of 40k without HP really.

On the BS 4 thing, as pointed out, the realisim of training and so on is completely unrealistic in 40k. If we were running a d10 or d20 system as pointed out above and Guard had the same BS as SM, then you'd have a good reason to complain. With a 6 sided cscale though, there just aren't enough options for BS values to show the differences in skill that well. Besides which, I'm not paying almost a whole chimera to make a tank BS 4, and I doubt anybody would, so balanced it is not.

With SM getting their free transports, it might be possible that as a formation bonus thing for taking a large force, conscripts might become free. Plus it would push sales as everyone wants to take 50 free guys for every platoon you bring.

an AV14/14/14 BS4 2 TL Lascannon 1 TL Heavy Bolter with POTM and a 12 man capacity

That variant has a 10 man capacity last I checked.

Comparing the two---

that's two high S hits, and a TL HB vs your High Str Pie Plate
and a HB.

The weapons can be argued as something of a wash.

leaving A point of BS difference, some rear/side AV, the Transport Capacity and the POTMS vs 50? points and the number one can field per FOC (selection)?

Here is something we have been playing around with for Rough Riders

Rough Riders Troop [Points: 50]
Sargent/Rough Rider
Weapon Skill: 3/3
Ballistic Skills: 3/3
Strength: 3/3
Toughness: 4/4
Wounds: 1/ 1
Initiative: 3/3
Attacks: 2/1
Leadership: 8/7
Save: 5+/5+
Unit Type:
Cavalry. Rough Rider Sergeant is Cavalry (Character).
Unit Composition:
4 Rough Riders
1 Rough Rider Sergeant
SPECIAL RULES:
Special Training
Wargear:
>Flak Armor
>Las Pistol
>Close Combat Weapon
>Hunting lance [+2 I]
>Frag & Krak grenades
Options:
>May include up to five additional Rough Riders [10 PPM]
>The Rough Rider Sergeant may replace his Las Pistol and/or Close Combat Weapon with one of the following:
May replace his Close Combat With with one of the following:
>Power Weapon [5 Points]
>Power Fist [15 Points]
>Las Pistol [Free]
>Plasma Pistol [10 Points]
The Rough Rider Sergeant may take Melta Bombs [5 Points]
Up to two Rough Riders may replace their hunting lance with one of the Following:
>Flamer [5 Points]
>Grenade-Launcher [5 Points]
>Melta-Gun [10 Points]
>Plasma-Gun [15 Points]
>Plasma Pistol [15 Points]
One Model may take the following:
>Battle Standard (Gives Unit Stubborn) [10 Points]
Any Model may exchange their Las Pistol and/or Close Combat Weapon for one of the following.
>Las Gun [Free]
>Las Pistol [Free]
>Shotgun [Free]
>War Shield (+1 Save) [5 Points]
Special Training:
Roll 1d6 for Each Rough Rider Troop right after determining Warlord Trait. [Option Roll once and all get the same Special Training]
1] Coursers: Can Shoot after or Before Running
2] Death Riders: Gain +1 FNP [6+]
3] Detesters: Gain Gain Furious Charge
4] Lancers: Can still Assault after Running
5] Outriders: Gain Outflank
6] Raiders: Gain Hit and Run

I se a lot of posters arguing about the price of equipment for the guard. It is ridiculous of course that a power fist costs 25 points in a guard list, and the same for a death company jump troop, who can do much more damage with it.

In general I think there is too much equipment choices in 40k. it slows down the games, makes for strange lists and RPS lists... GW could sell much more models if they had 8 or 9 different types of IG troopers, but with set equipment. Grenaders, demolitions experts, bayonetters, plasma squad etc sort of like WarMaHordes does if you understand where I am trying to get?

...Rough Riders...

When it comes to Rough Riders whenever GW updates them they need to serious consider some important points...

Regardless of where they come from cavalry have always been regarded as elite troops relative to infantry. Rough Riders in whatever form need to be on that same level as Veterans and Storm Troopers rather than simply basic guardsmen on horses with a flaccid lance...

Would it hurt to simply give them true "Power lances?" -it's not as if anyone actually uses those despite being in the core rulebook.

The other big advantage of cavalry has always been their ability to carry heavier equipment than footslogging infantry. When a steed does all the work you can carry a heavier weapon than the infantry. This means heavier armor, more weapon, or both, while still retaining heighten mobility.

I think Rough Riders should be used to emphasize the "imperialness" of the Imperial Guard and to that end I see them a two unit in one kit... Rough Riders split into "Lancers" and "Dragoons". Lancers being the rough riders we've had but with tweaks to emphasize that assault and scout role, power lance and some sort of shield for a invulnerable armor save. Dragoons are more mid-to-close mobile firepower to help compensate for the slower static nature of purely gun line infantry; I picture them with carapace armor, a heavy las-carbine, and choice of special weapons.

Well Rough Riders have always been something of a favorite red-headed step child. GW has always loved them without actually showing them any love. Just a vague reference to Atilla the Hun that got included everywhere, but expanded on nowhere.

I still wouldn't take those rough riders.

Rough riders are something I really want to take, and a simple fix I see is simply give them the ability to assault after coming on from reserve. They would then work like a proper counter attack unit, and imagine how cool it would look for the static lines of infantry to be saved from the assaulting foe by a unit of mighty lancers, driving back the heretical filth with the emperor's fury!

Well some people won't take Ratlings or Ogryn, and some people won't take Khorne Berzerkers or Thousand Sons, and some people won't take etc... The fact some people are disinterested in a unit doesn't mean GW should ignore a unit completely. Most often when I hear a complaint about IG it's from people who want IG to be analogous to a modern army... That's simply not the case and the sooner IG depart from that notion the sooner they can incorporate more of what they need. 40k is suppose to be this anachronistic future wrought with medieval feudalism; as it is very little of that comes through. Rough riders and cavalry in general maybe a bit heavy handed thematically but it fits the character of the setting.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Well some people won't take Ratlings or Ogryn, and some people won't take Khorne Berzerkers or Thousand Sons, and some people won't take etc... The fact some people are disinterested in a unit doesn't mean GW should ignore a unit completely. Most often when I hear a complaint about IG it's from people who want IG to be analogous to a modern army... That's simply not the case and the sooner IG depart from that notion the sooner they can incorporate more of what they need. 40k is suppose to be this anachronistic future wrought with medieval feudalism; as it is very little of that comes through. Rough riders and cavalry in general maybe a bit heavy handed thematically but it fits the character of the setting.

Except that "anachronistic future wrought with medieval feudalism" isn't the rule of thumb.

Are there elements of feudalism in the culture of the Imperium? Of course. But that doesn't take away from the fact that there is room for armies like the Cadians which use combined arms tactics and have been fleshed out more recently to be in line with (relatively) modern schools of thought for warfare.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
Well some people won't take Ratlings or Ogryn, and some people won't take Khorne Berzerkers or Thousand Sons, and some people won't take etc... The fact some people are disinterested in a unit doesn't mean GW should ignore a unit completely. Most often when I hear a complaint about IG it's from people who want IG to be analogous to a modern army... That's simply not the case and the sooner IG depart from that notion the sooner they can incorporate more of what they need. 40k is suppose to be this anachronistic future wrought with medieval feudalism; as it is very little of that comes through. Rough riders and cavalry in general maybe a bit heavy handed thematically but it fits the character of the setting.

Except that "anachronistic future wrought with medieval feudalism" isn't the rule of thumb.

Are there elements of feudalism in the culture of the Imperium? Of course. But that doesn't take away from the fact that there is room for armies like the Cadians which use combined arms tactics and have been fleshed out more recently to be in line with (relatively) modern schools of thought for warfare.

Are you arguing that there shouldn't be Rough Riders? -All I'm doing is arguing they should exist and need an update. I'm not insisting anyone has to use them.

This is ultimately a fictional setting or else marine bikers would be just as dead as our rough riders. And yet you have people who insist that because their Cadians use combined arm tactics that means rough riders shouldn't exist rather than asking themselves how would cavalry be used if they were institutionally forced on a regiment. Historically cavalry died to mass machinegun fire but you have to realize that was because they were used in a traditional fashion that left them relatively unsupported in the way that a combined arms approach would insist on them receiving support.

Rough Riders need an update and I'm just proposing that update should be within the character of the setting and that's where I prefer doubling down on the feudalism by pursuing two traditional forms of cavalry .

 aka_mythos wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
Well some people won't take Ratlings or Ogryn, and some people won't take Khorne Berzerkers or Thousand Sons, and some people won't take etc... The fact some people are disinterested in a unit doesn't mean GW should ignore a unit completely. Most often when I hear a complaint about IG it's from people who want IG to be analogous to a modern army... That's simply not the case and the sooner IG depart from that notion the sooner they can incorporate more of what they need. 40k is suppose to be this anachronistic future wrought with medieval feudalism; as it is very little of that comes through. Rough riders and cavalry in general maybe a bit heavy handed thematically but it fits the character of the setting.

Except that "anachronistic future wrought with medieval feudalism" isn't the rule of thumb.

Are there elements of feudalism in the culture of the Imperium? Of course. But that doesn't take away from the fact that there is room for armies like the Cadians which use combined arms tactics and have been fleshed out more recently to be in line with (relatively) modern schools of thought for warfare.

Are you arguing that there shouldn't be Rough Riders? -All I'm doing is arguing they should exist and need an update. I'm not insisting anyone has to use them.

This is ultimately a fictional setting or else marine bikers would be just as dead as our rough riders. And yet you have people who insist that because their Cadians use combined arm tactics that means rough riders shouldn't exist rather than asking themselves how would cavalry be used if they were institutionally forced on a regiment. Historically cavalry died to mass machinegun fire but you have to realize that was because they were used in a traditional fashion that left them relatively unsupported in the way that a combined arms approach would insist on them receiving support.

Rough Riders need an update and I'm just proposing that update should be within the character of the setting and that's where I prefer doubling down on the feudalism by pursuing two traditional forms of cavalry .

There should be rough riders and there should be more modern forces. There should also be forces that have a mix of everything as "An anachronism is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of person(s), events, objects, or customs from different periods of time.

All of these types of play should be possible and viable. Right now only a very small portion of guard tactics are represented in the book, and even less are viable. Light Infantry with sentinels, and rough riders should work differently than a mechanized force, and should also be at the very least semi feasible.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Well some people won't take Ratlings or Ogryn, and some people won't take Khorne Berzerkers or Thousand Sons, and some people won't take etc... The fact some people are disinterested in a unit doesn't mean GW should ignore a unit completely. Most often when I hear a complaint about IG it's from people who want IG to be analogous to a modern army... That's simply not the case and the sooner IG depart from that notion the sooner they can incorporate more of what they need. 40k is suppose to be this anachronistic future wrought with medieval feudalism; as it is very little of that comes through. Rough riders and cavalry in general maybe a bit heavy handed thematically but it fits the character of the setting.

I am interested in those units.

But with all of the WAAC players around, and the fact that they're never mechanically worth taking, means I won't.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Well some people won't take Ratlings or Ogryn, and some people won't take Khorne Berzerkers or Thousand Sons, and some people won't take etc... The fact some people are disinterested in a unit doesn't mean GW should ignore a unit completely. Most often when I hear a complaint about IG it's from people who want IG to be analogous to a modern army... That's simply not the case and the sooner IG depart from that notion the sooner they can incorporate more of what they need. 40k is suppose to be this anachronistic future wrought with medieval feudalism; as it is very little of that comes through. Rough riders and cavalry in general maybe a bit heavy handed thematically but it fits the character of the setting.

I agre with you completely, my favorite army is Steel Legion, and I don't think they should be modern, instead that would completely ruin their flavor. I actually think GW should have done sub-codexes for us instead of Marines, because we have unique groups and units, and each is artistically, thematically, and visually different, instead of just being the same looking guys in a different color. Also because I will take the average courageous guardsman who goes out to fight the horrors of 40k over the genetically engineered superman who is designed for it.

 triplegrim wrote:
I se a lot of posters arguing about the price of equipment for the guard. It is ridiculous of course that a power fist costs 25 points in a guard list, and the same for a death company jump troop, who can do much more damage with it.

In general I think there is too much equipment choices in 40k. it slows down the games, makes for strange lists and RPS lists... GW could sell much more models if they had 8 or 9 different types of IG troopers, but with set equipment. Grenaders, demolitions experts, bayonetters, plasma squad etc sort of like WarMaHordes does if you understand where I am trying to get?

This is how the Horus Heresy game does it.

I agree with a previous post here that the points should be used to balance the factions from a game-play point of view, not a fluff point of view. You could introduce something like a FOC to limit the number of units in an army or have specific unit restrictions like 0-1 per army.

BS3 guardsmen blows in current edition (np previous editions), but BS4 being uncommon fits the mold. BS4 tanks makes more sense for guardsmen as when firing you are relying on the tanks targeting systems not the person. Same for space marines right?

With the power creep in 7th the BS3 is alright with orders, but imho its the lasgun that blows, not the BS3. As a few posters said earlier on, firing 50 shots, rolling 50 dice to do 1 wound blows hard and eats alot of time.

Please o emperor give LR more hull points or bring back the old system for vehicles

Re: Ogryns, I think their fixes are easy:

- Make them 5-10 points cheaper.
- Change them from "Very bulky" to just "Bulky".
- Merge Ogryns and Bullgryns into a single unit and allow them to mix their loadout composition (Ripper gun/Grenadier gauntlet + Slab shield/Power maul + Brute shield) on a per model basis.
- *Maybe* allow them access to any Power weapon, instead of restricting them to just Power mauls, as they'd probably get a lot more mileage out of a Power axe.

Breton wrote:

an AV14/14/14 BS4 2 TL Lascannon 1 TL Heavy Bolter with POTM and a 12 man capacity

That variant has a 10 man capacity last I checked.

Comparing the two---

that's two high S hits, and a TL HB vs your High Str Pie Plate
and a HB.

The weapons can be argued as something of a wash.

leaving A point of BS difference, some rear/side AV, the Transport Capacity and the POTMS vs 50? points and the number one can field per FOC (selection)?

I stand corrected. A 10 man capacity.
Still does not remove the fact that it is far better than the Leman Russ. That 'some rear and side armour' essentially makes the Landraider immune to flanking shots with anything other than dedicated anti tank guns such as the Melta and Lascannon and also makes them immune to Krak Grenades.
And they cannot be rapid fired to death by a squad of basic infantry getting on their rear arc.
Not to mention that those two high S hits are TL. which makes them far more accurate.
Between a Leman Russ and a Landraider I will take the Landraider any day. It can actually hurt the Leman Russ.

Fingers crossed GW reads dakka dakka and implements some of these suggetsions

Before the new AM codex came out, people were already saying that IG happens to be static with little unit synergy. And they still removed HQs and units that gave a little of that synergy, nerfed the mobility knowing very well how 7th ed is going to look. I doubt the next AM codex is going to fix anything, unless it is a drastic codex rewrite. And when GW did something like that the last time in 7th, GK droped from 3 builds in a single codex to 4 usable units.

Vaktathi wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
A mere 10 points is even more ridiculous. That is so cheap as to be automatic, which defeats the point of IG being a basic human force.

Guard should be the WORST basic troopers in the galaxy. Period.

Huh? Worse than Grots?

They're not supposed to be ultra elite, but there are very definitely things that a guardsmen should be both better equipped and stat'd than. We're talking generally well trained human troops (not poorly trained conscripts, who have their own unit entry), some of whom have been exposed to military training their entire lives. There also have always been IG units that have been portrayed as very well trained and lavishly equipped, and, depending on the reigning GW design paradigm of the time, has sometimes been portrayed in the rules (e.g. all Cadians in 3E/4E were effectively BS "3.5").

. A human shooting as well as a augmented super soldier Space Marine or hypertwich Eldar is ridiculous. Offensive, really.

If you're offended over that, I don't know what to say. However, there have been BS4 guardsmen in every single edition of 40k ever.

Also remember basic Eldar, aside from Aspect Warriors & characters, were all WS3/BS3 for more than 90% of 40k's existence until they decided to change that very recently and to some degree of controversy. Humans weren't *that* far down the totem pole.

40-50 points is a good number, because it keeps BS4 very rare, truly exceptional.

Points costs are there to reflect the tabletop value of a unit, not to reflect background rarity. Otherwise a Tactical Marine would be 800,000,000 points next to a basic Guardsmen, and is why pricing things that way is terrible game design. 10pts would be an entirely appropriate points cost in terms of reflective tabletop value on many units, particularly those that rely single shot weapons and don't properly function within the current ruleset (e.g. Vanquishers).

EDIT: as a further point, I think it's time to start looking beyond stats as simple faction defining features. Even 70 year old tanks with crews that only had a few weeks training could hit targets hundreds of meters away with great accuracy, modern tanks moving at highway speeds can hit another moving target at a couple thousand meters away with 90%+ success rates.

Other games don't typically treat to-hit ability as a faction specific trait. Flames of War deals with to-hit rates depending on the opposing army's veterancy. Any conscript can be taught how to shoot modern weapons with some competency fairly quickly, it's up to the foe to make themselves hard to hit, and thus a Veteran enemy is very difficult to hit (knowing how to move from cover to cover, when to make their move, how to cover each other, etc) and sometimes even impossible to hit, while conscripts bumbling around in the open running human wave attacks are hit on 2's even by other conscripts.

Or one can look at something like Dropzone Commander, where to-hit rolls are generally weapon specific, with the "IG" style faction having just as many "hit on 2+" weapons as even the advanced cyborg humans and hyper-capable aliens, with similar power weapons, but don't necessarily have the same specialized support abilities or things like energy forcefields or blistering speed or raw resiliency.

First off, Grots, Conscripts and Guardians are not the standard troops of the Ork / IG / Eldar forces. The basic troopers are Orks Boyz, Guardsmen, and Aspect Warriors. Relative to every other army's basic troops (Boyz, Tac Marines, Aspect Warriors, Necron Warriors, Chaos Marines, etc.), Guardsmen should be the worst and their stats (and points) should reflect that.

Conscripts should be worse, and the d6 system should put them at BS2 (or even BS1). Some Cadians might be Veterans, warranting BS3.3, and the best trained Companies and Brigades might average BS3.1.

As above, the standard Eldar Trooper is a BS4 Aspect Warrior. Guardians have always been understat (should have been BS3.7). And yes, basic Humans SHOULD be that far down the totem pole. Making races distinctive is a good thing.

Again, 10 points is an auto-take, so it's a poor price. How would it be that EVERY SINGLE Russ / Hellhound / Valk on the tabletop wouldn't pay the 10 points? How would that be good design? Fact is, people take Pask, who's an expensive 0-1 upgrade. That means Vet Russes are properly balanced and costed and limited, and your proposed 10 point upgrade is nonsense.

40k uses WW1 technology. There are auto-targeters, but the crews are trained to disable them and use the manual aiming systems, with multiple redundant failsafes that are manually enabled and then disabled as part of the firing sequence. There is a prayer that is recited by the entire crew at each step of the firing sequence, which makes it pretty hard to hit something. To compare with WW2 or moderns is completely wrong. Also, the 40k scale is wrong. 40k should actually be played with Epic Minis (which is a different issue).

I am aware of how FOW works, and it's a better engine. 40k isn't a simulation. It's a fantasy game.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Again, 10 points is an auto-take, so it's a poor price. How would it be that EVERY SINGLE Russ / Hellhound / Valk on the tabletop wouldn't pay the 10 points? How would that be good design? Fact is, people take Pask, who's an expensive 0-1 upgrade. That means Vet Russes are properly balanced and costed and limited, and your proposed 10 point upgrade is nonsense.

No, 10pts is not auto-take. Paying 10pts for every chimera rapidly adds up to the cost of having one or even two extra chimeras, which are more useful in putting more effective shots down range, and better saturate the field with armour. In a 1500pts army, I could field some ~5-6 chimeras, and paying 10pts for each would not be worth it if I could have an extra chimera or Wyvern or Hydra or infantry squad, or better wargear options, or advisors.

Further, on just about any blast vehicle (most of the Guards' tanks), the BS4 is mostly wasted and not worth the 10pts. A vanilla russ seeing a -1" deviation is hardly worth it for 10pts, and especially if you were doing it army wide. In a 1500pts game, its not unreasonable to have in excess of a dozen tanks, and that upgrade would literally cost you an extra tank or two. The only tanks that would see a very real boost would be the Exterminator and Punisher, and really only the Punisher. Chimeras would receive some benefit, but a BS4 multilaser and occasionally heavy bolter too is so insignificant an upgrade compared to the standard BS3 as to be hardly worth mentioning in any competitive sense.

And the tank commanders are different, because they also grant Tank Orders, and Pask grants specific (and good) bonuses to a few already desirable variants. His points costs are justified far more than looking at his BS4.

Seriously, of all the examples you used, I'm laughing because the Hellhound and Banewolf can't even make use of their BS stat for their main cannons. Valks have pathetic guns to begin with, the Vendetta is already TL'd, and most of the other Guard weaponry is already TL'd or a blast and therefore see little improvement from a bump in BS, especially at 10pts.

All that said, I'd be fine it was 15pts, if only at first to play test and err on the side of caution. Anything more is ridiculous.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

First off, Grots, Conscripts and Guardians are not the standard troops of the Ork / IG / Eldar forces. The basic troopers are Orks Boyz, Guardsmen, and Aspect Warriors. Relative to every other army's basic troops (Boyz, Tac Marines, Aspect Warriors, Necron Warriors, Chaos Marines, etc.), Guardsmen should be the worst and their stats (and points) should reflect that.

That's a rather narrow definition of "Basic troop", and would very much depend on the type of force in question.

Even if we accepted that however, I would argue that Guardians are very much basic troops. They crew almost all Eldar vehicles as well as operate all heavy weapons & artillery platforms, operate as "cavalry" equivalents on jetbikes, and undertake infantry roles. In fact, they are routinely noted as being amongst the most common Eldar warriors. One can very easily make armies composed of nothing but Guardian units, one cannot make an army of Aspect Warriors without any sort of Guardians (including vehicle crews) that actually functions.

Conscripts should be worse, and the d6 system should put them at BS2 (or even BS1). Some Cadians might be Veterans, warranting BS3.3, and the best trained Companies and Brigades might average BS3.1.

Ok, methinks we're being overly harsh on the poor guardsmen here, and enforcing a view of what BS should be that nothing GW has ever produced would back up. There have always been BS4 Guard meodels in IG armies going back to RT. BS1 has been reserved almost exclusively for units which have been impaired for some reason or another, typically units that are firing blindly (either because they've actually been blinded or are not actually looking at what they're shooting at because they're hiding/taking cover).

If we're assuming that the best trained IG units should only barely warrant BS3, that's a definite revision on how they've been portrayed in the past, and not reflective of any way GW has chosen to portray them. GW have consistently portrayed BS3 as the base for a typical averaged "Trained soldier", with BS2 being used for unimpaired but untrained/uncaring units

As above, the standard Eldar Trooper is a BS4 Aspect Warrior. Guardians have always been understat (should have been BS3.7). And yes, basic Humans SHOULD be that far down the totem pole. Making races distinctive is a good thing.

Distinctive is one thing, insisting they should always have amazing stats "because Elves" is not. BS4 doesn't make Eldar distinctive, it just makes them BS4 (and devalues of BS4 meant on Aspect Warriors). Part of what I'd liked about Eldar until recently was that they didn't fall super hard into the "Elves are Better" trap. What makes a faction distinctive is their weaponry, style of play, unit makeup, and look. Simply being all BS4 is a really lame way to do that.

Again, 10 points is an auto-take, so it's a poor price. How would it be that EVERY SINGLE Russ / Hellhound / Valk on the tabletop wouldn't pay the 10 points? How would that be good design? Fact is, people take Pask, who's an expensive 0-1 upgrade. That means Vet Russes are properly balanced and costed and limited, and your proposed 10 point upgrade is nonsense.

One can tweak that as necessary, 10pts on this unit, 15pts on this unit, etc.

I can think of all sorts of things I wouldn't buy that on.At 10pts, it's not worth it on Chimeras, nor Hellhounds where I'm not using BS in the first place. Not gonna bother on a Valkyrie that's supposed to be transporting stuff and spending most of its time jinking or firing weapons where BS4 isn't going to make a huge difference anyway. I wouldn't bother with it on Ordnance equipped Russ tanks. I certainly wouldn't buy it for a Taurox. Buying it for a Wyvern would be pointless. There's all sorts of things you'd never buy it for.

Typically, in the past, GW has treated a BS upgrade as a ~10pt deal, sometimes 15., Look at Company Command Squads, they pay 20pts over a Platoon Command squad for both BS4 and a greater array of more powerful Orders and the ability to issue twice as many, assuming BS4 is 10pts is probably pretty safe there. One can see this in the Tank Commander upgrade as well, they pay 30pts to get BS4 and access to Orders, BS4 fits nicely as ~10-15pts of that.

One can also look at other sources, like IA1, where BS4 HQ & Elite Russ tanks are 10pts more than BS3 Troop Equivalents. or IA13 where everything starts at BS2 and can upgrade to BS3 for 10pts (which is by no means always taken).

As for Pask, people take Pask to get Rending on a 20 shot gun. They don't take Pask for just for BS4. I don't think I've seen Pask used in anything but a Punisher, and certainly not on anything that uses a Blast.

30-40pts however is simply completely out of bounds for how much value that brings, there's nothing in an IG army where paying 40pts just for BS4 is going to be consistently worth it, and assigning that value simply to represent rarity means it simply might as well just not be an option for how often people would consider taking it.

40k uses WW1 technology. There are auto-targeters, but the crews are trained to disable them and use the manual aiming systems, with multiple redundant failsafes that are manually enabled and then disabled as part of the firing sequence. There is a prayer that is recited by the entire crew at each step of the firing sequence, which makes it pretty hard to hit something. To compare with WW2 or moderns is completely wrong.

This varies extremely wildly by author and timepoint in GW's lifetime. I've certainly read GW stories where the operation of tanks was practically identical to WW2 operate with none of the religious mumbo-jumbo ever mentioned.

Also, the 40k scale is wrong. 40k should actually be played with Epic Minis (which is a different issue).

Absolutely at this point it should, 40k at this point has run away on itself.

I am aware of how FOW works, and it's a better engine. 40k isn't a simulation. It's a fantasy game.

Right, but that doesn't mean we can't use some of these ideas from others games, slavishly adhering to specific stat's in what is effectively a binary range, means that there's essentially no room for abstraction.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

First off, Grots, Conscripts and Guardians are not the standard troops of the Ork / IG / Eldar forces. The basic troopers are Orks Boyz, Guardsmen, and Aspect Warriors. Relative to every other army's basic troops (Boyz, Tac Marines, Aspect Warriors, Necron Warriors, Chaos Marines, etc.), Guardsmen should be the worst and their stats (and points) should reflect that.

Conscripts should be worse, and the d6 system should put them at BS2 (or even BS1). Some Cadians might be Veterans, warranting BS3.3, and the best trained Companies and Brigades might average BS3.1.

As above, the standard Eldar Trooper is a BS4 Aspect Warrior. Guardians have always been understat (should have been BS3.7). And yes, basic Humans SHOULD be that far down the totem pole. Making races distinctive is a good thing.

Again, 10 points is an auto-take, so it's a poor price. How would it be that EVERY SINGLE Russ / Hellhound / Valk on the tabletop wouldn't pay the 10 points? How would that be good design? Fact is, people take Pask, who's an expensive 0-1 upgrade. That means Vet Russes are properly balanced and costed and limited, and your proposed 10 point upgrade is nonsense.

40k uses WW1 technology. There are auto-targeters, but the crews are trained to disable them and use the manual aiming systems, with multiple redundant failsafes that are manually enabled and then disabled as part of the firing sequence. There is a prayer that is recited by the entire crew at each step of the firing sequence, which makes it pretty hard to hit something. To compare with WW2 or moderns is completely wrong. Also, the 40k scale is wrong. 40k should actually be played with Epic Minis (which is a different issue).

I am aware of how FOW works, and it's a better engine. 40k isn't a simulation. It's a fantasy game.

Practically everybody else has already answered you, so I'll leave this short
-Pask is not worth the points. The only time you ever see him is on a Punisher because of the unique benefeits he gives a punisher. If he truly was worth the points, he'd actually be taken on something besides a Punisher.
-You're not paying the 70pts for Pask for just BS4. Your paying 70 pts for Preffered Enemy for him and his unit, tank orders, Tank Hunter, and a special benefeit to the tank's main gun, and BS4. And if the entire crew prays before each shot, a lot of 40k writers have been neglecting their duty. Or just realized how idiotic that sounded.

They fix guard by fixing the other broken armies. It's not GW's rules, it is the codexes that re the problem. 3rd edition was way more fun than this edition. Because the codexes were simple.

General Hobbs wrote:


They fix guard by fixing the other broken armies. It's not GW's rules, it is the codexes that re the problem. 3rd edition was way more fun than this edition. Because the codexes were simple.

Its both.

Codices are a problem, but the core rules are equally bloated, poorly written, and tend to favour certain elements over others.

It's very simple: in any system, somebody has to be the worst. In 40k, that is the IG. Making Guardsmen heroic diminishes the scale of the rest of the game.

The d6 scale, in particular, is made even narrower by not using BS2 in a significant way. If everybody is BS4, why even bother having a BS stat?

What IG always has is volume and mass. That is how they compensate for individually being crap. FRFSRF, for example, mitigates BS3 to making it better than BS4.

The idea that individual Guardsmen or units thereof should be "good" misses the entire point of the IG.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's very simple: in any system, somebody has to be the worst. In 40k, that is the IG. Making Guardsmen heroic diminishes the scale of the rest of the game.

Since when did there have to be a uniform "worst", and how does an increased capability at using ranged weaponry suddenly make them "heroic" where they weren't before?

The d6 scale, in particular, is made even narrower by not using BS2 in a significant way. If everybody is BS4, why even bother having a BS stat?

A very good question given with the state of the game at this point, particularly in light of the change with Eldar.

What IG always has is volume and mass. That is how they compensate for individually being crap. FRFSRF, for example, mitigates BS3 to making it better than BS4.

The problem is there's a huge number of weapons that don't benefit from anything like FRFSRF, and that need a higher hit rate in order to really function properly. Stuff like a Leman Russ Vanquisher for example, where, at BS3, a dedicated tank hunter that is terrible at hunting tanks, because it lacks the ability to put enough hits on target to matter most of the time.

The idea that individual Guardsmen or units thereof should be "good" misses the entire point of the IG.

And yet there's been the history of the Cadians (where at one point they had BS 3.5 because they got to reroll 1's to hit), the well trained and lavishly equipped Vostroyans, Stormtroopers & Kasrkin, Krieg Guardsmen with WS4, etc.

The IG encompasses probably the most diverse and varied fighting force in the galaxy, where there are Chenkov-style conscript hordes, there are elite Kasrkin, where there are luckless namless regiments that die without any significant accomplishment, there are renowned ultra-experienced regiments like the Tanith 1st that can seemingly take on anything. There's a very good basis for stat variation with the IG.


Ultimately, enhanced BS IG units currently already, and always have, existed. We're not introducing anything new that the faction hasn't had access to before.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's very simple: in any system, somebody has to be the worst. In 40k, that is the IG. Making Guardsmen heroic diminishes the scale of the rest of the game.

The d6 scale, in particular, is made even narrower by not using BS2 in a significant way. If everybody is BS4, why even bother having a BS stat?

What IG always has is volume and mass. That is how they compensate for individually being crap. FRFSRF, for example, mitigates BS3 to making it better than BS4.

The idea that individual Guardsmen or units thereof should be "good" misses the entire point of the IG.

John, are you an Eldar/Necron/Marine player?
It is, sadly, a general given these days that most basic units are BS4 and those of which are not have some way to compensate for this, such as Tau having a 30" range and strength 5 AP4 weapons. What has the Guard got? A gakky glorified flashlight which in all honesty is crap. Oh sure we have FRFSRF but even with that we are only putting an average of two casualties on to a target a turn. That is 50 shots to kill two average MEQ (which most things are these days) opponents. Just stop and think on that for a while.
That is why we have Veterans and the are really fun buuuuuutttttt
what about our tanks? The fluff is full of veteran tank crews and it makes sense that a crew protected by thick steel would last longer than your average squishy man but for some reason we dont have them. But some of our vehicles need to be BS4, Take the Vanquisher, it is in all honesty crap with its one shot that only hits 50% of the time. Or the Punisher, that really would benefit. The Exterminator loves BS4. Hell, even our blast vehicles can benefit from it, that 1" can make all the difference.
10 points is not too little to ask. It makes sense. It feels right.

I have play tested this. I run a Homebrewed tank commander (costing 265 points) whom allows me to upgrade my tanks to BS4 for 10 points. It works. On the one hand the tanks individual performance is improved but on the other it quickly racks up. 7 tanks? Thats 70 points right there. Thats a Veteran Squad with a Heavy Bolter or Forward Sentries. Or 7 BS4 tanks.
So far all my opponents have agreed that it is a balanced upgrade.

Bs4 vanquishers would be an Emperor send. Sometimes my vanq will only take out one vehicle the entire game, from a combo of missing half the time and no real bonus to actually destroying enemy armour. All I can do is hull point strip with it because it's not ap 1. He hits half the time, and then only has a 1 in 6 chance to actually detonate most vehicles on a pen. And the only good thing about it is it averages 15 for its armour pen rolls.

Also make the deathstrike strength D.

Bs3 guardsmen with autogun or stubber instead of lasguns as standard issue? Would this assist? I cant remember off top of ma head

 sumi808 wrote:
Bs3 guardsmen with autogun or stubber instead of lasguns as standard issue? Would this assist? I cant remember off top of ma head

Lasguns, Autoguns and Stubbers all use the same profile now I believe.

I expect this has been brought up at some point, but why does a Deathstrike Missile need to be on the board to fire?

The thing has an unlimited range - surely we should be firing it from a base somewhere?

You don't see modern day military forces wheeling nuke-launchers to the edge of the place they're planning to nuke. What would be the point? You're basically sacrificing one of the greatest advantages of your weapon (the ability to hit a target at massive ranges), for no gain whatsoever.

But apparently in the 41st millennium, this is the standard strategy.

Incidentally, when people order missile strikes, they're usually pretty precise about when they want them. I don't recall any general responding to the question of when he wants the missile to fire with "Surprise me."

You could say the same thing of all the artillery really. A basilisk or manticore has no purpose being within small arms fire of the enemy.

 vipoid wrote:

Incidentally, when people order missile strikes, they're usually pretty precise about when they want them. I don't recall any general responding to the question of when he wants the missile to fire with "Surprise me."

Love the idea of phoning up the missile site and it being like a cable company.

"We're being overrun down here, need missile strike asap"

"We can fire it anytime between 11am and 5pm, will you be in then?"

"Depends how long it takes for this carnifex to eat our platoon really."

"We can reschedule for another day if these times are inconvenient for you. And that attitude is not helping get this done any quicker."

 Blacksails wrote:
You could say the same thing of all the artillery really. A basilisk or manticore has no purpose being within small arms fire of the enemy.

Very true, but artillery at least needs to be somewhere vaguely near the battlefield. Missiles can be fired from hundreds of miles away.

 HANZERtank wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Incidentally, when people order missile strikes, they're usually pretty precise about when they want them. I don't recall any general responding to the question of when he wants the missile to fire with "Surprise me."

Love the idea of phoning up the missile site and it being like a cable company.

"We're being overrun down here, need missile strike asap"

"We can fire it anytime between 11am and 5pm, will you be in then?"

"Depends how long it takes for this carnifex to eat our platoon really."

"We can reschedule for another day if these times are inconvenient for you. And that attitude is not helping get this done any quicker."

 HANZERtank wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Incidentally, when people order missile strikes, they're usually pretty precise about when they want them. I don't recall any general responding to the question of when he wants the missile to fire with "Surprise me."

Love the idea of phoning up the missile site and it being like a cable company.

"We're being overrun down here, need missile strike asap"

"We can fire it anytime between 11am and 5pm, will you be in then?"

"Depends how long it takes for this carnifex to eat our platoon really."

"We can reschedule for another day if these times are inconvenient for you. And that attitude is not helping get this done any quicker."

Have an exalt for that

The AM codex provides a rationale for the missile launcher being so close. Read the fluff text.

Alcibiades wrote:
The AM codex provides a rationale for the missile launcher being so close. Read the fluff text.

*Snorts* yes, and I read that too. It still makes no sense whatsoever.

Alcibiades wrote:
The AM codex provides a rationale for the missile launcher being so close. Read the fluff text.

I just read it and can see nothing of the sort.

All I'm seeing is reasons why deploying the damn thing so close is a really, really stupid idea. To name a few:

- "The Deathstrike exhibits huge range..." So why does it need to be positioned about a hundred yards from the front-line?

- "Able to visit the wrath of the Emperor upon targets half a world away." So, this thing can be fired on a target that's literally on the other side of the world... and they still feel the need to wheel it about 10ft from its target.

- "...the Deathstrike often requires its own escort and presents the foe with a valuable and relatively soft target." So why move the bloody thing to the edge of a battlefield?

- "Held behind imperial lines, Deathstrikes lurk out of site." So, wait, we're hiding these things behind our lines... by placing them in the open, maybe 10 yards behind the front line.

- "Fed short range combat-launch coordinates..." Is this what you're referring to? Because the text says that this is only for very desperate scenarios. And, if it isn't, how the hell do the IG coordinate anything when they are apparently incapable of providing long range coordinates. And, for that matter, what the hell are "short range coordinates"? I thought the entire point of geographic coordinates was that they provide a global positioning system. Or did everyone just forget to put batteries in their radios, so that "short range coordinates" consist of a commander shouting "fire it over there!" as loud as he can?

Conclusion:
The artillery is for Apoc games, where you strategically take one end of the board (which at this point should be large enough to call a "map"), point it at an enemy some extreme distance away, and then pound with impunity

While it does say that it is "for very desperate scenarios", it also says that the Deathstrike is experiencing something of a renaissance because of how bad things are becoming. It ends that blurb with:

Such measures are as inhumane as they are desperate, yet in these times no sacrifice is too great to ensure the survival of Mankind.

 vipoid wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
The AM codex provides a rationale for the missile launcher being so close. Read the fluff text.

I just read it and can see nothing of the sort.

All I'm seeing is reasons why deploying the damn thing so close is a really, really stupid idea. To name a few:

- "The Deathstrike exhibits huge range..." So why does it need to be positioned about a hundred yards from the front-line?

- "Able to visit the wrath of the Emperor upon targets half a world away." So, this thing can be fired on a target that's literally on the other side of the world... and they still feel the need to wheel it about 10ft from its target.

- "...the Deathstrike often requires its own escort and presents the foe with a valuable and relatively soft target." So why move the bloody thing to the edge of a battlefield?

- "Held behind imperial lines, Deathstrikes lurk out of site." So, wait, we're hiding these things behind our lines... by placing them in the open, maybe 10 yards behind the front line.

- "Fed short range combat-launch coordinates..." Is this what you're referring to? Because the text says that this is only for very desperate scenarios. And, if it isn't, how the hell do the IG coordinate anything when they are apparently incapable of providing long range coordinates. And, for that matter, what the hell are "short range coordinates"? I thought the entire point of geographic coordinates was that they provide a global positioning system. Or did everyone just forget to put batteries in their radios, so that "short range coordinates" consist of a commander shouting "fire it over there!" as loud as he can?

You're confusing two different issues... whether there is a rationale given and whether the rationale makes sense. A rationale is given -- you just quoted it in your last paragraph. That it doesn't make sense is another matter.

I always had the idea that Deathstrikes could fire any time, but the more time you let it "ready" the more powerful it is. So first turn if it fired, it's a Strength 10 7" Blast. Next turn, it's Apocalyptic with Ignores Cover. Third turn and on, it's Strength D

An apocalyptic ignores cover would be better than D.

I think id rather have a D weapon with a bonus to roll.

3+ to the D roll so epic destruction on a 4+

 Quintinus wrote:
I always had the idea that Deathstrikes could fire any time, but the more time you let it "ready" the more powerful it is. So first turn if it fired, it's a Strength 10 7" Blast. Next turn, it's Apocalyptic with Ignores Cover. Third turn and on, it's Strength D

It's not a laser. It doesn't need to charge up.

If anything, it should be something like it normally rolls an absurd 3-4D6 for Scatter, subtracting 1D6 for every full turn that the Deathstrike has not moved or suffered a Weapon Destroyed result.

 Desubot wrote:
I think id rather have a D weapon with a bonus to roll.

3+ to the D roll so epic destruction on a 4+

Use the rules for the vortex warhead. Anything under the 10" blast is gone. No saves, no special rules just gone. GC take D6 wounds and super heavys lose d3 structure points(which is 3,6 or 9 hull points).

 HANZERtank wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
I think id rather have a D weapon with a bonus to roll.

3+ to the D roll so epic destruction on a 4+

Use the rules for the vortex warhead. Anything under the 10" blast is gone. No saves, no special rules just gone. GC take D6 wounds and super heavys lose d3 structure points(which is 3,6 or 9 hull points).

Add a rule that removes all terrain under the blast, and replaces it with a 10" crater.

Alcibiades wrote:

You're confusing two different issues... whether there is a rationale given and whether the rationale makes sense. A rationale is given -- you just quoted it in your last paragraph. That it doesn't make sense is another matter.

Actually, rationales are supposed to be logical reasons.

Otherwise you might as well say "we're doing this stupid thing because it's what we're doing."

Currently, we appear to have an irrationale.

 Selym wrote:

 HANZERtank wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
I think id rather have a D weapon with a bonus to roll.

3+ to the D roll so epic destruction on a 4+

Use the rules for the vortex warhead. Anything under the 10" blast is gone. No saves, no special rules just gone. GC take D6 wounds and super heavys lose d3 structure points(which is 3,6 or 9 hull points).

Add a rule that removes all terrain under the blast, and replaces it with a 10" crater.

We do need a good lasgun replacement. Any thoughts? I was thinking 30k Solar Auxilla Lasrifles with attachments

Bring back Doctrines, allowing you to customise your army, or have certain rules (like chapter tactics) I.e. Cadians BS4 or something... Would make it fluffy and help your play style

 saithor wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 HANZERtank wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
I think id rather have a D weapon with a bonus to roll.

3+ to the D roll so epic destruction on a 4+

Use the rules for the vortex warhead. Anything under the 10" blast is gone. No saves, no special rules just gone. GC take D6 wounds and super heavys lose d3 structure points(which is 3,6 or 9 hull points).

Add a rule that removes all terrain under the blast, and replaces it with a 10" crater.

We do need a good lasgun replacement. Any thoughts? I was thinking 30k Solar Auxilla Lasrifles with attachments

How about multilasers, the greatest weapon mankind can bring to bear on it's foes.

P.S. anybody know when the next C.S.Goto book comes out?

But in seriousness, they could do with a buff. Even just a range increase would do. Being very fragile, guard need to lay on hurt before other things get in range. A 6" boost fluffed as a tighter focused beam STC being discovered would allow a turn of fire before most other mainstay guns get in range.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Quintinus wrote:
I always had the idea that Deathstrikes could fire any time, but the more time you let it "ready" the more powerful it is. So first turn if it fired, it's a Strength 10 7" Blast. Next turn, it's Apocalyptic with Ignores Cover. Third turn and on, it's Strength D

It's not a laser. It doesn't need to charge up.

If anything, it should be something like it normally rolls an absurd 3-4D6 for Scatter, subtracting 1D6 for every full turn that the Deathstrike has not moved or suffered a Weapon Destroyed result.

Not saying it's charging, just "readying" the weapon for maximal damage. Regardless, I like the idea of 3D6 of Scatter.

At this point, is there really a good balance argument for the Deathstrike needing such random factors?

It's got a scary weapon, but it only fires once. With the state of the current game, you can bring other units that can fire similar or even more powerful weapons every single turn. While it may cost you 3x as much to bring such a superheavy, you'll get 6x the number of shots and probably 6x the survivability between AV14 and 9HP.

 Vaktathi wrote:
At this point, is there really a good balance argument for the Deathstrike needing such random factors?

It's got a scary weapon, but it only fires once. With the state of the current game, you can bring other units that can fire similar or even more powerful weapons every single turn. While it may cost you 3x as much to bring such a superheavy, you'll get 6x the number of shots and probably 6x the survivability between AV14 and 9HP.

These are alternatives to the current nonsense of being unable to fire the damn thing turn one.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
At this point, is there really a good balance argument for the Deathstrike needing such random factors?

It's got a scary weapon, but it only fires once. With the state of the current game, you can bring other units that can fire similar or even more powerful weapons every single turn. While it may cost you 3x as much to bring such a superheavy, you'll get 6x the number of shots and probably 6x the survivability between AV14 and 9HP.

These are alternatives to the current nonsense of being unable to fire the damn thing turn one.

Is there a need for alternatives as opposed to simply removing the restriction? Certainly it can't be worse than a Stormsword doing the same thing turn 1, and then turn 2, and 3...




Just not seeing a need for the turn 1 restriction nor anything really to take its place when you've got stuff like that rolling around

Though that said, I wonder at its inclusion as a normal battlefield frontline unit at all when it should really be more something of a mission objective than a tactically operating support unit.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
At this point, is there really a good balance argument for the Deathstrike needing such random factors?

It's got a scary weapon, but it only fires once. With the state of the current game, you can bring other units that can fire similar or even more powerful weapons every single turn. While it may cost you 3x as much to bring such a superheavy, you'll get 6x the number of shots and probably 6x the survivability between AV14 and 9HP.

These are alternatives to the current nonsense of being unable to fire the damn thing turn one.

Is there a need for alternatives as opposed to simply removing the restriction? Certainly it can't be worse than a Stormsword doing the same thing turn 1, and then turn 2, and 3...

Do Stormswords use the Apocalyptic Blast template?
Serious question as I don't have the most current rules for them.

Just not seeing a need for the turn 1 restriction nor anything really to take its place when you've got stuff like that rolling around

Logically, I can understand the restriction. If I take 3 Deathstrike Launchers against an army which is going to have lots and lots of expensive models deployed on the table at the start, and I'm hucking S10 AP1 Apocalyptic Blast, Ignores Cover, Barrage shots at them turn one...I'm going to thin that enemy force out. If I'm firing three of them, I might actually wipe out the enemy force pretty fast--provided they're not all T6 or have Eternal Warrior or something else to prevent them from being doubled out or they have hefty Invulnerable saves, etc.

That said--given the silly nature of some armies now, I really would like to fire Deathstrikes turn one. Not that I'm bitter against an Eldar player, nope...

Though that said, I wonder at its inclusion as a normal battlefield frontline unit at all when it should really be more something of a mission objective than a tactically operating support unit.

Who says every battle where a Deathstrike is involved is actually a frontline battle? Maybe the enemy broke through the Guard's lines or sent a raiding party through and the battle is to defend the Deathstrike's elevated launch position!

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
At this point, is there really a good balance argument for the Deathstrike needing such random factors?

It's got a scary weapon, but it only fires once. With the state of the current game, you can bring other units that can fire similar or even more powerful weapons every single turn. While it may cost you 3x as much to bring such a superheavy, you'll get 6x the number of shots and probably 6x the survivability between AV14 and 9HP.

These are alternatives to the current nonsense of being unable to fire the damn thing turn one.

Is there a need for alternatives as opposed to simply removing the restriction? Certainly it can't be worse than a Stormsword doing the same thing turn 1, and then turn 2, and 3...

Do Stormswords use the Apocalyptic Blast template?
Serious question as I don't have the most current rules for them.

Just not seeing a need for the turn 1 restriction nor anything really to take its place when you've got stuff like that rolling around

Logically, I can understand the restriction. If I take 3 Deathstrike Launchers against an army which is going to have lots and lots of expensive models deployed on the table at the start, and I'm hucking S10 AP1 Apocalyptic Blast, Ignores Cover, Barrage shots at them turn one...I'm going to thin that enemy force out. If I'm firing three of them, I might actually wipe out the enemy force pretty fast--provided they're not all T6 or have Eternal Warrior or something else to prevent them from being doubled out or they have hefty Invulnerable saves, etc.

That said--given the silly nature of some armies now, I really would like to fire Deathstrikes turn one. Not that I'm bitter against an Eldar player, nope...

Though that said, I wonder at its inclusion as a normal battlefield frontline unit at all when it should really be more something of a mission objective than a tactically operating support unit.

Who says every battle where a Deathstrike is involved is actually a frontline battle? Maybe the enemy broke through the Guard's lines or sent a raiding party through and the battle is to defend the Deathstrike's elevated launch position!

when has that stopped the dubs with the big wub way portal drop with d flamers

I feel if they want to keep that fluffiness down, they could just make it so the longer you wait the better your chances of direct hitting like for every turn you scatter d3 less or something.

 Desubot wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
At this point, is there really a good balance argument for the Deathstrike needing such random factors?

It's got a scary weapon, but it only fires once. With the state of the current game, you can bring other units that can fire similar or even more powerful weapons every single turn. While it may cost you 3x as much to bring such a superheavy, you'll get 6x the number of shots and probably 6x the survivability between AV14 and 9HP.

These are alternatives to the current nonsense of being unable to fire the damn thing turn one.

Is there a need for alternatives as opposed to simply removing the restriction? Certainly it can't be worse than a Stormsword doing the same thing turn 1, and then turn 2, and 3...

Do Stormswords use the Apocalyptic Blast template?
Serious question as I don't have the most current rules for them.

Just not seeing a need for the turn 1 restriction nor anything really to take its place when you've got stuff like that rolling around

Logically, I can understand the restriction. If I take 3 Deathstrike Launchers against an army which is going to have lots and lots of expensive models deployed on the table at the start, and I'm hucking S10 AP1 Apocalyptic Blast, Ignores Cover, Barrage shots at them turn one...I'm going to thin that enemy force out. If I'm firing three of them, I might actually wipe out the enemy force pretty fast--provided they're not all T6 or have Eternal Warrior or something else to prevent them from being doubled out or they have hefty Invulnerable saves, etc.

That said--given the silly nature of some armies now, I really would like to fire Deathstrikes turn one. Not that I'm bitter against an Eldar player, nope...

Though that said, I wonder at its inclusion as a normal battlefield frontline unit at all when it should really be more something of a mission objective than a tactically operating support unit.

Who says every battle where a Deathstrike is involved is actually a frontline battle? Maybe the enemy broke through the Guard's lines or sent a raiding party through and the battle is to defend the Deathstrike's elevated launch position!

when has that stopped the dubs with the big wub way portal drop with d flamers

I feel if they want to keep that fluffiness down, they could just make it so the longer you wait the better your chances of direct hitting like for every turn you scatter d3 less or something.

Turn one launch should be allowed, otherwise it's just a free KP that may or may not earn it's points back, depending on what it launches the missile. Seriously though, it's an ICBM, but if there's an army of enemies coming at them the commander is more than likely going to yell "Feth This!" and scream at the crew to launch it already. If you're worried about the massive alpha strike, just limit Deathstrikes to one per armym, or 2000 pts.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Do Stormswords use the Apocalyptic Blast template?
Serious question as I don't have the most current rules for them.

Aye, same strength, AP, blast size, and gets the ignores cover bit.

Logically, I can understand the restriction. If I take 3 Deathstrike Launchers against an army which is going to have lots and lots of expensive models deployed on the table at the start, and I'm hucking S10 AP1 Apocalyptic Blast, Ignores Cover, Barrage shots at them turn one...I'm going to thin that enemy force out. If I'm firing three of them, I might actually wipe out the enemy force pretty fast--provided they're not all T6 or have Eternal Warrior or something else to prevent them from being doubled out or they have hefty Invulnerable saves, etc.

True, but you can take an Unbound army of 3 Stormswords and do the same thing, with some extra guns thrown in and some points left over in a typical 1500-2000pt game. Particularly as GW's rules writing department isn't restricting itself in the same way most playgroups are with house rules against Unbound and whatnot.

I could understand the restriction in the context of earlier editions. At this point, I think allowing it to fire on turn 1 isn't any more broken than stuff that's possible in the Necron, Eldar, AdMech, etc books.

That said--given the silly nature of some armies now, I really would like to fire Deathstrikes turn one. Not that I'm bitter against an Eldar player, nope...

Exactly. If we're facing a dozen D shots coming from across the board with an Eldar army and the like, I just don't see the point of the restriction anymore.

Who says every battle where a Deathstrike is involved is actually a frontline battle? Maybe the enemy broke through the Guard's lines or sent a raiding party through and the battle is to defend the Deathstrike's elevated launch position!

Possible, but hard to swallow if you're seeing them routinely, and in theory not really something that would be brought to bear against something within small arms distance, most such weapons wouldn't be able to properly function like that short of simply detonating in place.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's very simple: in any system, somebody has to be the worst. In 40k, that is the IG. Making Guardsmen heroic diminishes the scale of the rest of the game.

The idea that individual Guardsmen or units thereof should be "good" misses the entire point of the IG.

John, are you an Eldar/Necron/Marine player?

I dunno, maybe you should take a look at my sig and P&M blog sometime...

And what's your point?

Shouldn't the question be whether I am a Guard / IOM player?

And if we're asking questions about personal interest, are you even half as invested into Guard as I am? If not, maybe you should be the one to step back until you've matched me in GW / Imperial spend.

"I spend more money so my opinion is more valid"

That's a pretty bold angle

It's a fair take when he's trying to bring up non-Guard armies to imply something sneaky.

Also, this is GW gaming, so pay to play definitely should matter.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's very simple: in any system, somebody has to be the worst. In 40k, that is the IG. Making Guardsmen heroic diminishes the scale of the rest of the game.

The idea that individual Guardsmen or units thereof should be "good" misses the entire point of the IG.

John, are you an Eldar/Necron/Marine player?

I dunno, maybe you should take a look at my sig and P&M blog sometime...

And what's your point?

Shouldn't the question be whether I am a Guard / IOM player?

And if we're asking questions about personal interest, are you even half as invested into Guard as I am? If not, maybe you should be the one to step back until you've matched me in GW / Imperial spend.

To determine Investment on the individual, subjective, and qualitative level, you must take into account the other investments that a person has. In other words a subjective determination on investments, is the comparison between how much you have invested in one thing as opposed to others. I may only have around 2,000 points of guard and thus quantitatively you have a lot more than I do. That does not mean that you have more investment in guard than I do. I am 100% invested in guard, whereas you have diversified investments. If any one of those investments goes wrong for you, then you are not screwed as you have a safety net comprised of different assets. I, as a guard player have no where else to turn if something happened. See Subjective Theory of Value

Now that the Ad Hominem is complete, I'm going to be as short as possible in retorting your arguments. The guard is anything and everything. You are telling me that my Volunteer Group ,that has been hand picked by the planetary governor, has existed as an entity for thousands of years, and operates as light infantry, airborne and guerrilla fighters are supposed to use mass infantry and tanks. How am I supposed to play the way I want to if my guardsmen are just walking corpses? I like infantry, and a well placed shot from any rifle should be able to take anything down. Right now I don't win games because I refuse to take tracked vehicles and other things that are against the fluff of my volunteer organization. Do you know what happens when you put a bunch of veterans without transports, a bunch of sentinels, and vendetta air support against just about any army? I get tabled and/or lose the game before it even starts. So don't tell me how my guard are supposed to play.

My guys don't even have infiltrate or any other special rules that should go along with their fluff and their fighting style. The guard has everything and anything, and the rules should reflect that. Sure we shouldn't be the best at anything, but we also shouldn't be the worst. My veteran fighting force should at least stand toe to toe with other similar infantry, but instead they get gunned down like mooks.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's a fair take when he's trying to bring up non-Guard armies to imply something sneaky.

Also, this is GW gaming, so pay to play definitely should matter.

Yeah well my Guard army is bigger than yours, so you're wrong.

The fact that I have 3.5x as my IG as you suggests you can far more easily walk away from Guard than I can. Playing a hand of $1 poker is very different than switching between poker and craps at the High Rollers room.

How do you know I'm not leaving out future projects/unpainted plastic in that total as you do, I looked at your blog "high roller", you're wrong.

Guys stop feeding John. This is exactly how trolls work. He's fething with you.

Be much better if we moved back to the actual topic rather than the current show of oh so interesting puffery we have going on.

Thank you.

reds8n wrote: Be much better if we moved back to the actual topic rather than the current show of oh so interesting puffery we have going on.

Thank you.

Im not quite sure why but this made me laugh, so have an exalt Red.

I will get right back OT but first just one tidgy little thing....

JohnHwangDD wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's very simple: in any system, somebody has to be the worst. In 40k, that is the IG. Making Guardsmen heroic diminishes the scale of the rest of the game.

The idea that individual Guardsmen or units thereof should be "good" misses the entire point of the IG.

John, are you an Eldar/Necron/Marine player?

I dunno, maybe you should take a look at my sig and P&M blog sometime...

And what's your point?

Shouldn't the question be whether I am a Guard / IOM player?

And if we're asking questions about personal interest, are you even half as invested into Guard as I am? If not, maybe you should be the one to step back until you've matched me in GW / Imperial spend.

.... John, having looked at your sig and blog I am impressed. You are fairly well invested. However I am not sure how many points I have in my IG, I lost count some years back at the 3Kish mark for my first army.
Currently I have two armies - well technically three, but I am currently running the South Lancashire's and the Whermacht together until they both become big enough to split off from each other and become independent armies on their own. Currently this combined army sits at the 3K - 3.5K mark as well and is set to be expanding soon with some new British Infantry and next year with my local clubs Army Builder which will involve a Panzer Grenadier division with supporting Pioneers, SS, Panzers, Scout columns and possibly Fallschirmjager.
So each army will be looking close to the 4K mark.

Oh, and I have no other 40K armies. I am completely invested in the IG whereas you hav armies from each different race. Please do not try to turn this into an IG dick size comparison.

Vaktathi wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Do Stormswords use the Apocalyptic Blast template?
Serious question as I don't have the most current rules for them.

Aye, same strength, AP, blast size, and gets the ignores cover bit.

Yep, pretty much although your range is only 36". That said I would rather take my Stormsword any day. It makes for a great Marine killer, is far, far tougher, has more backup weapons and can fire multiple times over.

JohnHwang be trollin' hard.

I've been out of the game for a year....so......if I were to do guard, what should I take to have a fun game?

General Hobbs wrote:


I've been out of the game for a year....so......if I were to do guard, what should I take to have a fun game?

It's going to vary wildly based upon your playstyle and what you want to accomplish in your own local meta.

I like tanks and transports and guys hopping out and mowing people down.

My old list included a bunch of vets in chims and russes and I'd throw in some Inquistion stuff for counter attack.

I almost feel like doing a counts as army with space marine scouts in land speeder storms and speeder gunships, using Guard models and Guardified scratchbuilt transports after reading most of this thread.

General Hobbs wrote:


I've been out of the game for a year....so......if I were to do guard, what should I take to have a fun game?

A 5th edition rulebook.

 vipoid wrote:

General Hobbs wrote:


I've been out of the game for a year....so......if I were to do guard, what should I take to have a fun game?

A 5th edition rulebook.

Hear hear!

All this "troll": name-calling is pretty fething annoying. Just because I have a different viewpoint, and am not afraid to state it, that isn't trolling.

I have spent a metric fethton of both time and money on my IG and allied IoM forces, and the army matters a LOT to me. It has been, and continues to be, a massive undertaking to collect, assemble, and play. And the amount of IG & IoM stuff I can put on the tabletop is tremendous.

If anyone is trolling, it's trolling to suggest that my substantial investments in other forces somehow diminishes the effort and expense I've put into my IG.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
All this "troll": name-calling is pretty fething annoying. Just because I have a different viewpoint, and am not afraid to state it, that isn't trolling.

You've explicitly stated in the past that the outrageousness of your assertions is tied proportionally to how bored you are.

That is basically trolling.

For the deathstrike, I'd like to see it be able to fire no matter what, as in if it is destroyed the missle launches anyway and will it a target randomly determined. I'm not sure how, maybe it will scatter D6, D6's away from the tank in a random direction? I know that is a little bit of orky chaos. But hey a massive fighting force like this is gonna have hilarious blunders as well

Make the Deathstrike missile strength D, keep the random launch, have it cost 160 points.

It's AV12 with 3 HP's, if the opponent can't kill it before it launches they're a bad player and kind of deserve the D-struction anyway.

In the next codex maybe Ogryns will loose ripper guns and instead get Grav guns, that would defiantly make me use my 3 ogryn models, especially if they are priced at 25 points a model

 sumi808 wrote:
In the next codex maybe Ogryns will loose ripper guns and instead get Grav guns, that would defiantly make me use my 3 ogryn models, especially if they are priced at 25 points a model

/ What's that coming out the Chimera,
Is it an Ogryn,
Oh crap it's grav-guns! /

I would love to do that.

Quite frankly the idea of a random one-shot pony is stupid and lacks any sense of tactics or strategic value. It's lulzy - and I love it for that - but it's unplayable now as-is.

A few ideas:
Start of the game, controlling player chooses a warhead (via marker/card) that ranges from HE/Frag to Vortex. Progressively stronger warheads take more turns to prepare. The card is hidden face-down from the opponent until the turn it is used.

Basically forces the opponent to always worry about when it'll go off while giving the controlling player some tactical flexibility.

When the Deathstrike is destroyed, the commander will initiate an emergency fire. The missile will be cold-launched without set coordinates to stop the enemy from getting its hand on the valuable (and tide-turning!) ordnance. Roll for scatter and double the distance.