Discussion about Conscripts keeps overflowing into other threads, and the last one got locked because people were breaking Daka's rules.
I think it's a topic that needs to be discussed since if you're playing against IG, you're probably going to have to kill some conscripts in order to win.
Questions:
0) Are conscripts OP?
1) Are they priced fairly?
2) Should they be able to take orders?
3) Should Commissars be able to keep them in line, or should they kill him and run away after he's shot several of them?
4) Is it physically possible to get all 50 conscripts into rapid fire range?
5) Are conscripts indicative of more core problems related to infantry spam in 8th edition?
6) Are conscript squads fine as they are?
7) What are good ways to kill lots of conscripts in one turn, and can it be done for less than 400 points or so (cost of conscripts + commissar + commander x 2 or so) for every army?
8) Should anti-conscript units be a requirement for TAC lists?
9) How many points should it cost, in general, to counter tarpit units that specialize in not dying quickly?
10) How can you build good anti-tarpit units that can also do other things?
1ppm more I feel is enough, they're too cheap for what they offer right now. In an army where everything is hilariously cheap, these are the biggest laugh for what they offer.
Automatically Appended Next Post: If they could take orders they go from very strong to hilariously OP
Possibly orders are too efficient with Conscripts, but that's about the only thing they've got going on that strikes me as being particularly out of line with similar options.
There is a general problem with cheap low-toughness bad-save wounds in 8th, though. They are just too durable for their cost -- there's no way to efficiently deal with them. Conscripts are the standard example, but honestly regular Guardsmen are a problem too. Brimstone Horrors are 2 points for T3 4++ and so are even more durable than Conscripts. Razorwing Flocks are 7 points for T2 W4 7+, making them comparable to Conscripts against many weapons.
Meanwhile, no one actually has guns which are good for killing T3 5+ at their current prices. Lascannons murder multi-wound high-toughness good-save models -- they're several times more efficient against their preferred target than against single-wound infantry -- and they do it from far away. Rapid-firing plasma is ridiculously good against two-wound heavy infantry. Heavy Bolters and Assault Cannons shred MEQs. There's nothing that's great at killing Conscripts. You would expect something like a lasgun to be good for this -- they're low-strength with no AP -- but actually lasguns expect to kill more points of Marines than points of Conscripts (significantly more; this is not close).
The state of the game right now is as if we had all of these new multi-wound vehicles at their current costs and not a single multi-damage weapon. For everything else in the game, there are options I can take which are excellent counters to it. If I'm running into armies that use a lot of some kind of unit, I can bring a lot of guns that are good against that kind of unit and be heavily favored to win. This is an important mechanism for achieving a balanced meta -- you don't need things to be balanced in some absolute, objective sense, you just need to reach an equilibrium where people are preferentially tailoring their lists against the stronger stuff out there. But you can't do this to deal with hordes of cheap wounds. Basically anything you might take is actually an anti-MEQ gun in disguise. One can imagine an equilibrium where hordes and lots of vehicles (with lots of anti-infantry guns) are both viable, but this would drive out MEQs almost entirely.
I think they're probably, on paper, a bit too good for the points. Same points cost as Gretchin, but with better stats, better guns, larger max unit size, and better buff availability. If they couldn't take orders (which would make perfect sense, fluff-wise – this is a mass of chumps who've been thrown lasguns and flak armour, not a well-drilled military unit), and there were some sort of mitigation to the Commissar buff, I think they'd be fine.
CragHack wrote: How about Vultures? A single Vulture can brrrrt 40 shots with +1 to hit.
People have suggested that Vultures are overpowered themselves. But regardless, yeah, a Vulture will kill about 9 Conscripts in a turn. It will also kill half that many Marines who each cost four times as much. Vultures have a somewhat-specialized anti-MEQ gun that can be used inefficiently against GEQs if you don't have better targets.
Granted, Vultures can be very annoying for Conscript blobs because they can afford to just go into hover mode and charge the Conscripts to tie them up, but this is something that you would want to be doing with anything else you've got with T6+.
BrianDavion wrote: I think part of the problem is their sheer size, reduce their max size to 20 and conscripts become a LOT less potent.
this... spam isn't going anywhere but lowering thier unit size makes them less efficient with orders and harder to keep a commissar in range. Once you remove the efficiency conscripts become crappy. But honestly right now conscripts are barely the biggest issue this edition.
I think plasma guns and pistols needs to be nerfed to str6 and str7 overcharged across the board for every army
I think stormravens needs a decent point cost increase
Brimstone horrors need thier invul nerfed to 5+
GSC genestealers needs it's priced fixed so that talons aren't free for them
razorwing flock spam nerf 1 wound off them giving them 3 instead of 4.
Spam will continue to exist this edition as people play Rock Paper Scissors and decide what's the most efficient list not what's well rounded. However I have no idea what gw was thinking with the plasmagun it is literally mathematically the best special weapon in most situations compared to all other Comparable choices.
7) What are good ways to kill lots of conscripts in one turn, and can it be done for less than 400 points or so (cost of conscripts + commissar + commander x 2 or so) for every army?
Why is this important? Why should something be able to kill its point value every turn? And if we're going to say that something should, then shouldn't that apply to the conscripts as well?
7) What are good ways to kill lots of conscripts in one turn, and can it be done for less than 400 points or so (cost of conscripts + commissar + commander x 2 or so) for every army?
Why is this important? Why should something be able to kill its point value every turn? And if we're going to say that something should, then shouldn't that apply to the conscripts as well?
Here's the problem. A whirlwind with a castellan launcher kills roughly 2.6 conscripts per salvo. That's 115 pts of whirlwind dedicated to killing low T targets with bad saves. There should be units that act as efficient answers to certain types of units, but even the best conscript killers are bad at it.
7) What are good ways to kill lots of conscripts in one turn, and can it be done for less than 400 points or so (cost of conscripts + commissar + commander x 2 or so) for every army?
Why is this important? Why should something be able to kill its point value every turn? And if we're going to say that something should, then shouldn't that apply to the conscripts as well?
Probably because on the other side of the spectrum, it's pretty easy to remove things on the heavier side (say, tanks) with heavy weapons like lascannons. The hard counter weapons you're supposed to take vs infantry very much no longer function.
A flamer used to be the anti infantry equivalent of the melta gun. Very short range, situation dependent, but capable of blowing away its point cost or more very easily if you manage to position correctly. A good flamer template would easily remove 5-6 GEQ with one shot. A flamer now averages about 1. That is basically the same number as a plasma gun, which makes no sense given the range differential and how much worse it is vs elites/vehicles.
Some kind of anti light infantry weapon should exist because it would prevent super-spam like we're seeing right now. Ditto for anti air weapons - we're in the same boat we were in 7th where AA weapons were absurdly weak as a baseline, so the fact that they work normally vs flyers doesn't help. AA weapons should get solid bonuses against flyers, but be able to flex to a less efficient anti infantry or anti tank role if there are no flyers.
7) What are good ways to kill lots of conscripts in one turn, and can it be done for less than 400 points or so (cost of conscripts + commissar + commander x 2 or so) for every army?
Why is this important? Why should something be able to kill its point value every turn? And if we're going to say that something should, then shouldn't that apply to the conscripts as well?
No not everything should be able to kill its point value in a turn. Some units have other roles like being mobile, providing buffs, being tanky etc. But for units that specialize in killing, they should absolutely be whipping it out and measuring to see if they're at least making their points back. If they aren't, odds are there's a unit in their codex that needs to take their spot in the list. Why would you spend points on a unit for the damage dealing role if other units in the army do it better?
For general killing I'd say a damage-dealing unit needs to be able to average its own points in two-three turns. For a super specialized unit engaging their preferred target at their preferred range? They should get damn close to making their points in one turn.
Spamming units is always going to be a staple of competitive play outside of a Highlander style format.
My issue with conscripts is their morale immunity. Morale basically doubles the effectiveness of weapons against hordes of models. The counter to infantry spam is built in right there. Certain armies can simply mitigate morale way too easily. Perhaps if they changed the Commissar's summary execution on conscripts to be "executes D6 models to autopass the test", it would make them easier to shift. Conscripts are far less disciplined that their career equivalents, are far less used to the iron hard on the commisariat. Might make sense that it would take just a little bit more encouragement to keep a mob of hive labourers in the fight than the comparatively elite imperial guard.
I like the idea of nerfing their synergy with the commissar.
Against hordes in general, I think any shooting at a unit of 20+ models should get +1 to hit, and any "random number of shots" weapons get to add 1 shot per die. (castellan launcher for example would be 2d6+2.) To represent that when there's that many dudes there, it's kinda hard to miss.
The problem with Conscripts is their synergy with Commissars; with their ability to reduce morale problems to one dead Conscript no matter how horribly you maim the unit itself it becomes harder to attrit them down.
I've mentioned before just giving Conscripts another ability specific to Commissars: Get back in line you rabble!; Instead of restricting casualties due to failed morale checks to one, Commissars and Lord Commissars using the Summary Execution rule halve (rounding up, to a minimum of one) all casualties caused by morale to Conscript units.
The problem with hordes in general may be the lack of scalability of formerly-template weapons - where you could really punish large hordes before, most template weapons will struggle to kill large groups. Could add a rule to horde units like: Tightly packed! Roll a D6 for every wound if this unit has 15 models or more; on a 5+ the unit suffers a mortal wound in addition to normal damage.
Battleshock should be their weakness. They should be easily scared and not be able to be able to ignore morale. If they were not affected by the commissar.. I think the problem is solved. In AoS, battleshock is the bane of cheap lightly armored troops. When there is a huge blob of maruaders, you know that if you can take out 6 or 7, another 7-8-9 will run away.
0) When set up right, they are pretty much unstoppable.
1) Yes. Until you beef up their numbers and start adding Commissars. Who, btw, are themselves not overly bad. It's just a synergistic problem.
2) No. I mean, logically, yes. But the IG's order system? No. They are extremely poorly trained and terrified out of their mind.
3) I would put it that the Commissar executes one for cowardice, but because there are so many of them a handful of others runs away while he's not paying attention.
4) Take 2 blobs of 50. The answer is now yes.
5) No. I hear nobody complaining about footspam Marines or Eldar. There was some early contention about Necrons getting up so damn much but that's a WBB issue.
6) Not when they are used as they are right now. Blocks of a couple of dozen dudes with no Commissar are not going to exactly be game breakers.
7) 180 x 3 = 540 points. 540 points of generic units is the number to aim for, as that is on par with the destructive potential of most other units. Find me a proper dedicated AI unit this edition, and it'll be different. But we lack dedicated AI this edition.
8) Is a TAC list going to face them? It's like asking if TAC lists should have to have AT weapons or not.
9) 2.5-3x the points cost. TO eliminate in one turn. 1-1.5x to significantly damage or hold up the unit. 0.5-1x to just delay it.
10) I don't know, but I do know that you can't do it with Eldar without spamming SfD to make your Aspect units viable.
0) No. They were always a competitive choice even in 7th ed. The big reason people have problems with them is they spam powerful weapons and not small arms. If you wanted a OP unit let guard players use our old infantry platoons all combined.
1) Yes. They don't do much damage and are easy to kill. Again, people need to bring more small arms and less anti tank/ monster. They are a walking wall.
2) Yes. Even if they didn't they would still be there tar pitting and acting like a wall.
3) Yes. If you get rid of the commissar they crumble. If you take away their leadership buffs then tyranids and orks should have their leadership nerfed just as hard.
4) Yes. It is very hard but it can be done. Last tournament I had my 50 man blob fire 187 shots (SOOOO CLOSE).
5) Yes/No. IG have always been a infantry spam army. Would we prefer to go back to riptide/ scatbike spam? Players always spam certain units. It is just that suddenly the IG are competitive and people are not used to that. Almost nothing changed in IG play-style or lists from 7th to 8th.
6)Yes.
7) Small arms fire. Every forces most basic weapon will do superbly against them. Snipers/close combat are good ways of dealing with characters. The key is not to waste your shooting on them and fire at the IGs other units. i cannot stress this enough that you DO NOT shoot them. The entire purpose of conscripts is to be killed so don't do it.
8) Yes. 8th ed. made small arms fire king. Strength 4-5 weapon spam is king for its ability to reliably hurt most units on a 5-3 dice roll.
9) Rule of 3rds. 1/3 of your army should be anti infantry (Strength 3-5 weapons). 1/3 of your force should be anti heavy tank/ monster (strength 8+ weapons with good ap). 1/3 should be medium weapons that can do both depending on what is needed ( Strength 6-8 weapons with ap-1 or better).
10) NEVER EVER EVER focus on the tarpit! That is its entire job. That is what your opponent wants you to do. Kill the other units first and use the leftover firepower on them at the end.
Grots are only overpriced until you consider that they're one of the only ways Orks can get BS4+ shooting. Since Orks are not a shooting army, they pay a premium for anything that isn't BS5+ or worse.
This is garbage because a Grot can only ever carry a pistol. So all that BS4 is WASTED due to lack of weapons. Ironically Grots do man our Artillery as well but those grots only cost 2ppm. So overall, Grots suck except as a cheap horde to stick on top of an objective and forget about.
The issue is that not the price of the conscripts, the issue is that they can be taken alone, and thus are easily spammed.
I think the platoon set up should be brought back. For those unaware, the platoons in 7th addition required a minimum of a platoon command squad and two infantry squads, after which you could take conscripts.
In the new addition, a platoon's minimum requirements could probably be a Platoon Commander and two infantry squads, with the rest of the command squad being optional.
Bringing back the platoon would be both fluffy, and put a tax of sorts on the conscripts. For every unit of conscripts, you would NEED to take along two regular squads of infantry and a platoon commander minimum.
They are not particularly overpowered in and of themselves, being just a mass of meat, but they benefit a lot of the support guard can bring. An order will benefit 20-50 Conscripts instead of 10 guardsmen, a Commissar will prevent a lot of them running away, making battleshock as irrelevant for an Ld4 unit as it is for a Ld7 unit.
Removing their ability to benefit from orders, making battleshock hit them harder and/or reducing their unit size will all go a long way of making them less desirable. One could also reintroduce something similar to the platoon rules, making a Conscript unit require one (or more) units of normal guardsmen.
About the general tendency of weapons being much more efficient against MEQ, this is no real surprise. You get more than 4 Conscripts per Marine, and if we take an S4 AP- weapon, it only kills ~2.67 Conscripts per Marine hit. Lasguns kill 3 Conscripts per Marine, and more powerful weapons just makes the ratio worse, with S8+ higher AP killing almost as many Marines as Conscripts per hit. But on the other hand, if we remove their ability to benefit from orders and Commissars, this is the only benefit they have. They deal little damage apart from seriously skewed calculations.
I think you could fix the problem with two easy changes.
1) Limit the conscript squad size to 20
2) Tweak the Commissar rule so that they can only choose one unit in the moral phase to use their ability on. (and the choice is made before rolling for moral)
These changes limit the squad size to a sane level and then force you to either take a whole boat load of Commissars or force a decision in game about which squads you protect.
Honestly, conscripts have been good for a while (referring to previous addition.) The unit itself doesn't need a nerf, I honestly think just having a note saying "for every two infantry squads, one unit of conscripts may be taken" would iron it right out.
Messing with the effectiveness of commissars or reducing the stats of conscripts even more wouldn't be a good thing.
Cothonian wrote: Honestly, conscripts have been good for a while (referring to previous addition.) The unit itself doesn't need a nerf, I honestly think just having a note saying "for every two infantry squads, one unit of conscripts may be taken" would iron it right out.
Messing with the effectiveness of commissars or reducing the stats of conscripts even more wouldn't be a good thing.
This is entirely the most intelligent means of 'balancing' conscripts I've seen since the indexes appeared. The problem isn't conscripts themselves. Bring back the platoon and then move them back to 0-1 per platoon and the problem dissolves. because of that extra 80 points you have to take in other models.
Of course, at that point, you just redouble the scion spam. But I'm sure someone will come along with a 'simple solution' for that soon too.
If you throw 80 Bolter dice at conscripts, that's only 30 dead. That takes more than double the cost of the squad, counting the commissar, to deal 60% damage. It's hard to think of a unit that isn't blatantly undercosted, where you could invest more than double its cost in the *most optimal* method of removal, and deal only 60% damage.
Imagine throwing 1,000 points worth of melta, in melta range, into an imperial knight, and seeing it still running around with 8 wounds remaining. That's the level of defensive efficiency the conscripts enjoy.
I would change conscripts so that:
1. A commissar can only affect 1 squad of conscripts.
2. Morale losses /w commissar are reduced to 1/2, not to 1.
3. Commissars are no longer characters.
They are overpowered, mainly because no other infantry in the entire game are as tough as conscripts for their points. You can look at termagaunts and grots for close equivalents. Conscripts blow both out of the water. So yeah, put them at 4 ppm and things get better (though they are still better than termagaunts....).
One issue people have is that making conscripts cost the same as normal guardsman *feels* wrong. But the fact is, being able to take so many in a single unit is a large advantage, given how both orders and auras work. It's why termagaunts can (sorta) get away with costing the same price as normal guardsmen, taking them in units of 30 really makes synapse and other boosts easier to distribute efficiently.
Also, just to make this clear: No termagaunts are not more deadly than conscripts. Even at 4 points conscripts would have the edge, 12" of range or twice the shots beats an extra point of BS and S. The spike rifle is even worse (though mixed kinda mitigates the range issue... but just enough to try and compete with conscripts) and the pistol weapon is only better if you want your unit to assault....
Aesthete wrote: I think the current counter to conscript blobs is sniping the Commissar and then unloading on the conscripts.
The only real problem is for armies that don't have access to reasonably costed sniper or equivalent options.
So IMO, the answer is to provide sniping or equivalent options to remove the buffing units - especially since Commissars are not that tough.
Having a single unit, if that, per army that can counter a strategy is horrifically bad design. Imperial Knights weren't that bad last edition, you at least had multiple options for removing them. Forcing snipers is a step back from that.
if snipers must be run to remove heros, then any claim to balance made by this edition should be routinely and to thoroughly mocked. Killing the commissar should not be the *only* effective way to deal with them.
It's not the only way to deal with them. You can just kill them the old fashioned way, a T3/5+ is not that difficult to remove.
Especially since their offensive output drops rapidly as they take casualties. You don't have to wipe the whole unit, just enough to get them out of your way and cripple their shooting. Get them down to under 20 models and even their value as a FRFSRF target starts to become dubious, due to the difference between BS5+ and BS4+.
ross-128 wrote: It's not the only way to deal with them. You can just kill them the old fashioned way, a T3/5+ is not that difficult to remove.
Especially since their offensive output drops rapidly as they take casualties. You don't have to wipe the whole unit, just enough to get them out of your way and cripple their shooting. Get them down to under 20 models and even their value as a FRFSRF target starts to become dubious, due to the difference between BS5+ and BS4+.
I did not say only way, I said only effective way. Killing the commissar is the only effective way, because otherwise you must drop an absurd amount of firepower into the unit to kill it. Generally speaking, twice as much as you would for other infantry units of similar overall cost. Which si an absurd level of effectiveness.
To explain more: Shooting grots or termagaunts without killing the character giving them fearless is an option, because even without morale I can drop them in somewhat efficient manner. Killing the character first would be ideal, but I can get by without doing that. But conscripts are so much more resilient than other units that... I just can't clear them effectively. Because conscripts are so cheap yet surprisingly tough. So, saying I can shoot conscripts down without killing the commissar is true. I can also kill imperial knights with power axes or overcharged plasma. It's a horrifically ineffective way to go about it.
Also, the main thing they do is hug objectives, and given how objectives work, clearing all or most is needed. That must be an option, one that is effective and points efficient.
And their primary purpose is to be a damage sponge. If "efficiently' removing them from the board was trivial, they wouldn't be much of a sponge now would they?
Besides, gaunts are arguably overcosted because they don't stack up so well against Boyz either.
Conscripts have a clearly defined role and they're good at doing it. Why is that a bad thing?
Marmatag wrote: If you throw 80 Bolter dice at conscripts, that's only 30 dead. That takes more than double the cost of the squad, counting the commissar, to deal 60% damage. It's hard to think of a unit that isn't blatantly undercosted, where you could invest more than double its cost in the *most optimal* method of removal, and deal only 60% damage.
Imagine throwing 1,000 points worth of melta, in melta range, into an imperial knight, and seeing it still running around with 8 wounds remaining. That's the level of defensive efficiency the conscripts enjoy.
That's at single tap range, move to double tap range and your damage distribution becomes enough to wipe the squad with those 160 bolter shots. Meanwhile you've lost 5 space marines at most from the entire 80. You traded 65 points to get rid of 150, and now there's probably a visible character you can assault. Sounds like a win?
I mean, that melta example sure sounds horrifying! Lets think about that for a while and see if it really is though. At 24 wounds, 4.5 damage per shot, that's 5.3 melta hits. You'd need 10.6 meltas to do that on average. You'd need 16 meltas to get that, and that's just the average result. Most direct route would be 20 sternguard, all with meltas (because you don't want to just hope for the average, do you?). So now you're up to 660 points, but you need a delivery mechanism otherwise you wouldn't be able to get all 20 there without SOMETHING getting killed surely. Drop pods won't cut it, so I guess you're going to have to go with either a land raider or a storm raven. Land raider is way too expensive, and the stormraven is, what, 200 points-ish once you put guns on it? 250? So you're up to about 1100 to get the meltas there, but you got a couple multimeltas on the stormravens, so lets cheapen out with a handful of guys and say 16 guys in two stormravens, relying on the melta from the storm ravens, and that they reliably make it there without losing either of the ravens. So yeah, about 1000 points or so, with average result of killing a Knight in one turn. Could still easily have 8 wounds on it if the rolls swung badly.
In other news, I saw that scouts actually got way better this edition. Honestly, if I was starting a SM army, I'd probably just bring nothing but scouts with sniper rifles for infantry. It's not great shooting, but it does anything you need to do at better range than the bolters do. Probably, or something.
I would change conscripts so that:
1. A commissar can only affect 1 squad of conscripts.
2. Morale losses /w commissar are reduced to 1/2, not to 1.
3. Commissars are no longer characters.
1 breaks the way aura rules work fundamentally by creating a single special case.
2 makes commissars fundamentally unhelpful for anything other than conscripts.
3 is what I want in addition to my combined squads back. It would fix the problem, but only in the way that it rendered both commissars and conscripts pointless. You'd also have to make the LC and Yarrick do something other than what the commissars do (which would be really strange thematically) otherwise, you'd be right back in the same situation you were in beforehand, except with people using an HQ instead of an elite.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Exactly. The conscripts are for soaking damage. If you make them bad at soaking damage, then.. what?
I'm sorry Space Marines are kind of good at everything while Guard have units that specialize. You guys seem jealous.
Every unit should have a counter though. Right now there's hardly anything game wide that checks conscripts, even things that thematically should, like whirlwind castellans, flamers etc.
Similar to a land raider. Most of its points are tied up in its durability, but it can be KO'd on the cheap by weapons meant for the job. All we want is for weapons meant for the job of killing t3/5+ efficiently to actually...work efficiently. If you don't also want that, we'll then you're probably a guard player enjoying your time with an OP unit.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Wow people are being hyperbolic. I just heard that the amount of firepower required to kill 30 conscripts is absurd.
Haven't we had that firepower since like 3rd? I'm pretty sure my tank companies in 3rd used to blow guardsmen to smithereens pretty easily.
Except this changed. A lot. Bolters and most similar basic weapons no longer ignore the conscripts armor saves. Large blast weapons are now notably less effective at clearing out hordes as well, 3 shots and 2 hits is now the average, a big step down (so your tank squadrons won't do it very well these days I imagine.
Also: conscripts are not actually bad at putting out damage. I have no idea why people keep saying this. Some of that is orders, but even just for their cost they are great. Four conscripts put out and more hurt than a single tactical marine, while being cheaper. Three put out compareable damage to a vanguard, despite being cheaper and vanguard being designed to but out a ton of str 3. As far as basic low strength firepower, conscripts are arguably the best there is due to cost alone.
At 4 points, they'd still be tough and have more firepower than you keep insisting. They'd still be perfectly viable, because they'd be balanced against every other infantry unit in the game.
SilverAlien wrote: Having a single unit, if that, per army that can counter a strategy is horrifically bad design. Imperial Knights weren't that bad last edition, you at least had multiple options for removing them. Forcing snipers is a step back from that.
if snipers must be run to remove heros, then any claim to balance made by this edition should be routinely and to thoroughly mocked. Killing the commissar should not be the *only* effective way to deal with them.
If having a single unit that can do that is bad, then the solution is to provide more than one unit that's a response to squishy buffer characters.
Bottom line is that the existence of buffing characters is a fundamental part of 8E's design. Ideally if you're building a decent TAC list you'll bring some tools to deal with those scenarios beyond writing "nerf it" on the internet. If you have no such tools available in your index/ codex that's the thing that needs fixing.
Except this changed. A lot. Bolters and most similar basic weapons no longer ignore the conscripts armor saves. Large blast weapons are now notably less effective at clearing out hordes as well, 3 shots and 2 hits is now the average, a big step down (so your tank squadrons won't do it very well these days I imagine.
How is it that everyone is having a hard time killing conscripts? Are you able to kill ork boyz? What about genestealer spam? What army lists are you running? You don't need to kill conscript squads in one turn, you need to kill them in 5-6 turns. If you are fighting a imperial knight you normally cant kill it in one turn. You kill it over 3-4 turns with some specialized weapons. Correct me if I am wrong but, you spam melta and lascannons to kill of the knight. What would you take to kill off light infantry?
To be honest, if they were going to cost the same as guardsmen I would want them to have BS4+. They can keep their WS5+ and LD4, but they'd at least need BS4+. At that point they'd still be strictly worse than guardsmen on their own, but applying their buff efficiency to BS4+ would be enough to make up their other drawbacks.
With their current stat line, if I had to choose between 4-point conscripts and 4-point guardsmen I'd take the guardsmen every time.
As far as the comparison between guardsmen and space marines, the difference between them is quite small and is entirely accounted for by the fact that a tactical marine is T4/3+, LD7/8, has ATSKNF, has Chapter Tactics, and has an extra weapon that they basically just use for melee. The tactical marine is paying for a good deal more than just its ability to wound T3 models.
After all, let's say hypothetically we made tactical marines just as cheap a source of shooting as conscripts, and we made conscripts just as easy to remove from the board. Would that be fair to the conscripts? Or would the conscripts be screwed because a tactical marine can do everything they do just as well, while also enjoying a bunch of other advantages that they don't pay for?
Marmatag wrote: If you throw 80 Bolter dice at conscripts, that's only 30 dead. That takes more than double the cost of the squad, counting the commissar, to deal 60% damage. It's hard to think of a unit that isn't blatantly undercosted, where you could invest more than double its cost in the *most optimal* method of removal, and deal only 60% damage.
Imagine throwing 1,000 points worth of melta, in melta range, into an imperial knight, and seeing it still running around with 8 wounds remaining. That's the level of defensive efficiency the conscripts enjoy.
That's at single tap range, move to double tap range and your damage distribution becomes enough to wipe the squad with those 160 bolter shots. Meanwhile you've lost 5 space marines at most from the entire 80. You traded 65 points to get rid of 150, and now there's probably a visible character you can assault. Sounds like a win?
No, it's assuming double tap range with storm bolters, or 420 points of Grey Knights strike squads. If you were to do this with basic tacticals, in rapid fire, you'd need 40 of them, or 520 points. Much higher.
daedalus wrote: I mean, that melta example sure sounds horrifying! Lets think about that for a while and see if it really is though. At 24 wounds, 4.5 damage per shot, that's 5.3 melta hits. You'd need 10.6 meltas to do that on average. You'd need 16 meltas to get that, and that's just the average result.
Which is still considerably cheaper than 250% of the cost of a Knight, is the point. You can remove the Knight without investing over 1100 points into killing it. But all meltas isn't a real example. In reality you'd use a combination of lascannon and melta, and you'd devote some points to force-multipliers for rerolls. Because you can easily afford all of that for 1100-1200 points.
daedalus wrote: In other news, I saw that scouts actually got way better this edition. Honestly, if I was starting a SM army, I'd probably just bring nothing but scouts with sniper rifles for infantry. It's not great shooting, but it does anything you need to do at better range than the bolters do. Probably, or something.
Scouts cannot shoot a target they cannot see. Scouts DO NOT counter conscripts + commissars.
1. A commissar can only affect 1 squad of conscripts. 2. Morale losses /w commissar are reduced to 1/2, not to 1. 3. Commissars are no longer characters.
1 breaks the way aura rules work fundamentally by creating a single special case. 2 makes commissars fundamentally unhelpful for anything other than conscripts. 3 is what I want in addition to my combined squads back. It would fix the problem, but only in the way that it rendered both commissars and conscripts pointless. You'd also have to make the LC and Yarrick do something other than what the commissars do (which would be really strange thematically) otherwise, you'd be right back in the same situation you were in beforehand, except with people using an HQ instead of an elite.
1. Check out the rules for an apothecary, it should work similarly. 2. Not really, guard + sergeant = 7 leadership, which is the same as death company. Commissars still increase leadership to 9. 3. If this would make commissars worthless, then shouldn't snipers make commissars worthless? Oh wait they don't, because that doesn't always work. You'd still need equipment that can fire without line of sight to hit the commissar. In any practical example you cannot see the commissar to shoot him.
Unless those conscripts are packed shoulder to shoulder in staggered ranks specifically to form a LoS wall, and the commissar is modeled in a crouching stance (because most commissar models are taller than conscript models, due to the hat), you have LoS to the commissar.
And even if they did do the above specifically to block LoS, any elevated firing position will negate that.
I will say that if you're trying to wipe conscripts with tactical marines, don't just stand and shoot them (unless you have cover and they don't, in which case 2+ save vs 5+ will probably tilt it in your favor). Shoot then charge. Yes, they'll overwatch you, but eating 6+ overwatch is vastly preferable to eating 5+ FRFSRF.
And don't expect to wipe them in one turn unless you really commit resources to it. Because their entire job is to be a speed bump that takes either a good deal of time or a good deal of overkill to dislodge.
ross-128 wrote: It's not the only way to deal with them. You can just kill them the old fashioned way, a T3/5+ is not that difficult to remove.
Especially since their offensive output drops rapidly as they take casualties. You don't have to wipe the whole unit, just enough to get them out of your way and cripple their shooting. Get them down to under 20 models and even their value as a FRFSRF target starts to become dubious, due to the difference between BS5+ and BS4+.
Each individual conscript is very easy to kill, the problem is doing it efficiently. 100 conscripts represent a relatively small amount of points, if you want to kill them then you will have to dedicate quite a few points to that task - this means less points dedicated to killing the rest of the AM army. Which army you play makes a big difference in terms of conscript-killing efficiency. Admech has probably the most efficient answer in the Kastelan Robot, killing 7-8 conscripts per turn per 110 point model with decent durability and long range. That's about 27 points of conscripts (including overhead for support) per turn, with the best answer out there. To illustrate the point we can look at the efficiency against another target. If you fire the same Kastelan Robot at MEQ it dishes out 4 unsaved wounds per turn, which is at least 52 points worth of losses. Notably the conscripts typically put out greater firepower per point than the typical MEQ unit.
ross-128 wrote: It's not the only way to deal with them. You can just kill them the old fashioned way, a T3/5+ is not that difficult to remove.
Especially since their offensive output drops rapidly as they take casualties. You don't have to wipe the whole unit, just enough to get them out of your way and cripple their shooting. Get them down to under 20 models and even their value as a FRFSRF target starts to become dubious, due to the difference between BS5+ and BS4+.
Each individual conscript is very easy to kill, the problem is doing it efficiently. 100 conscripts represent a relatively small amount of points, if you want to kill them then you will have to dedicate quite a few points to that task - this means less points dedicated to killing the rest of the AM army. Which army you play makes a big difference in terms of conscript-killing efficiency. Admech has probably the most efficient answer in the Kastelan Robot, killing 7-8 conscripts per turn per 110 point model with decent durability and long range. That's about 27 points of conscripts (including overhead for support) per turn, with the best answer out there. To illustrate the point we can look at the efficiency against another target. If you fire the same Kastelan Robot at MEQ it dishes out 4 unsaved wounds per turn, which is at least 52 points worth of losses. Notably the conscripts typically put out greater firepower per point than the typical MEQ unit.
Well yes. Soaking up shots that would be more efficiently used on other units is their job. If you make killing them just as efficient as killing anything else, that would remove their entire purpose for existing.
Aesthete wrote: If having a single unit that can do that is bad, then the solution is to provide more than one unit that's a response to squishy buffer characters.
Bottom line is that the existence of buffing characters is a fundamental part of 8E's design. Ideally if you're building a decent TAC list you'll bring some tools to deal with those scenarios beyond writing "nerf it" on the internet. If you have no such tools available in your index/ codex that's the thing that needs fixing.
Or we could acknowledge the issue is most characters aren't effective to nearly the degree commissars and conscripts (negating its singular main disadvantage at a token price) are when they interact, and adjust the point cost. Comissars are fine with almost every other unit, so increasing the price of conscripts is the correct call, as one disadvantage (morale) will never be felt when fielded in a sensible way.
ross-128 wrote: To be honest, if they were going to cost the same as guardsmen I would want them to have BS4+. They can keep their WS5+ and LD4, but they'd at least need BS4+. At that point they'd still be strictly worse than guardsmen on their own, but applying their buff efficiency to BS4+ would be enough to make up their other drawbacks.
With their current stat line, if I had to choose between 4-point conscripts and 4-point guardsmen I'd take the guardsmen every time.
You realize forcing you to choose between guardsman at 5 points would be far more balanced than buffing conscripts? Guardsman at 5 would still as good or better than compareable units for the cost. Better than cultists, compareable to neophyte hybrids, etc.
If being able to take them in large units isn't worth a downgrade to BS and WS (because leadership doesn't matter for guard), the guard only being able to be taken in units of 10 isn't a large enough downside for them to be cheaper than other units who can be taken in larger sizes.
Seriously guard players, go look at what every other army pays for its units, then look at yours. I don't think you realize how underpriced a huge chunk of your units are compared to everyone else. Do look internally to see if your units are balanced, you will likely just compare it to anothe underpriced unit. Look at what every other balanced army has to pay.
ross-128 wrote: Well yes. Soaking up shots that would be more efficiently used on other units is their job. If you make killing them just as efficient as killing anything else, that would remove their entire purpose for existing.
No it wouldn't. First off, we'd be making them as good as *every other unit whose entire purpose is to soak damage and hold objectives*. Of which they are currently better than for no good reason.
Secondly, they'd still be better at it than many, due to commissars and commanders being such huge for multipliers when used with them. They just wouldn't be better to such an absurd degree.
Find me a unit that can hold ground as well as 4 point conscripts actually. Find me any unit that can hold ground that well.
Conscripts are fine. The problem is commissars negating the baked in flaw of conscripts, which is they lose more models to morale losses than the enemy actually inflicts. If all they said was "Conscripts are so cowardly they ignore the 'encouragement' of Commissars" then we'd not be having this discussion. Or make the Commissar's ability slay one model for every 10 in the unit instead of just one.
ross-128 wrote: It's not the only way to deal with them. You can just kill them the old fashioned way, a T3/5+ is not that difficult to remove.
Especially since their offensive output drops rapidly as they take casualties. You don't have to wipe the whole unit, just enough to get them out of your way and cripple their shooting. Get them down to under 20 models and even their value as a FRFSRF target starts to become dubious, due to the difference between BS5+ and BS4+.
Each individual conscript is very easy to kill, the problem is doing it efficiently. 100 conscripts represent a relatively small amount of points, if you want to kill them then you will have to dedicate quite a few points to that task - this means less points dedicated to killing the rest of the AM army. Which army you play makes a big difference in terms of conscript-killing efficiency. Admech has probably the most efficient answer in the Kastelan Robot, killing 7-8 conscripts per turn per 110 point model with decent durability and long range. That's about 27 points of conscripts (including overhead for support) per turn, with the best answer out there. To illustrate the point we can look at the efficiency against another target. If you fire the same Kastelan Robot at MEQ it dishes out 4 unsaved wounds per turn, which is at least 52 points worth of losses. Notably the conscripts typically put out greater firepower per point than the typical MEQ unit.
You still have to factor in the cost of the Commissar to this, otherwise those 7-8 dead conscripts are also removing a minimum of 4 more bodies from the unit at the end of the turn. With the Commissar it is still 1 additional dead Conscript. If you want to give the Conscripts orders too, you need an officer as well standing right on top of them. Remember, Conscripts live and die by their buff auras - if they get out of it for any reason they are going to drop.
Conscripts can use a nudge, but nerfing the Commissar to be completely unusable is not the answer. Instead giving Conscripts some "Untested" rule, that makes them suffer 1d3 or 1d6 losses to morale from a Commissar would probably fix things - they are still a roadblock but morale still shifts them.
On the other hand, probably the best answer is to just ignore them - fire your big guns at the tanks, and only fire your leftover guns at the Conscripts - its not like they are going to be going anywhere fast without dedicating officers left and right to have them march.
ross-128 wrote: Well yes. Soaking up shots that would be more efficiently used on other units is their job. If you make killing them just as efficient as killing anything else, that would remove their entire purpose for existing.
Which would be fine if that was all they did, but they put out a significant amount of firepower as well. An equivalent amount of points put into tactical marines with bolters gives you half the firepower. The tactical marines put out less damage when they are in rapid fire range and the conscripts aren't.
Marmatag wrote: Which is still considerably cheaper than 250% of the cost of a Knight, is the point. You can remove the Knight without investing over 1100 points into killing it. But all meltas isn't a real example. In reality you'd use a combination of lascannon and melta, and you'd devote some points to force-multipliers for rerolls. Because you can easily afford all of that for 1100-1200 points.
Sure, but the Knight can actually DO things to you other than just get in your way. I was not trying to suggest that melta sternguard + storm ravens was actually the best way to deal with a knight. I was just showing you how it was actually well within the sphere of believably for a literal 1000 points of melta to leave 8 wounds left on a Knight.
Scouts cannot shoot a target they cannot see. Scouts DO NOT counter conscripts + commissars.
How often is this really an issue? Based upon what I've seen locally and at Adepticon, you're not really hiding stuff very often. Maybe that's changed recently?
Maybe take a Vindicare? You're shutting down 300 points with >100 then. Maybe that's a better ratio.
1. Check out the rules for an apothecary, it should work similarly.
2. Not really, guard + sergeant = 7 leadership, which is the same as death company. Commissars still increase leadership to 9.
3. If this would make commissars worthless, then shouldn't snipers make commissars worthless? Oh wait they don't, because that doesn't always work. You'd still need equipment that can fire without line of sight to hit the commissar. In any practical example you cannot see the commissar to shoot him.
1. I'm uncertain how that would work in this hypothetical situation because one is an ability you willfully use during your movement phase and the other one is an aura. Are you suggesting it designates a squad to affect? Should there be a 4+ involved? Should it not be able to do anything else that turn?
2. Commissar increases leadership to 8. I guess I'd have to see it in action.
3. It renders commissars worthless because your spare autocannon would make him disappear unless the board was set up in some sort of way that always let you totally deny LOS (which seems very unlikely) and then he's stuck in literally one spot. Snipers don't make commissars worthless because in every single discussion about snipers I've seen on Dakka, people say "but they suuuuuuck!" and then ignore them. I think the guard thread is the only place I've seen people get excited about snipers, amusingly enough.
I kinda want to see this crazy game where you've got a commissar running through this parking lot of... well, not russes, because no one takes those, and no chimeras, because no one takes those. Uh... basilisks and tauroxen then, I guess, darting from hull to hull in the dangerous game of keeping the blob from just melting down while staying away from the two sniper rifles that are somewhere in the opponent's army.
kurhanik wrote: You still have to factor in the cost of the Commissar to this, otherwise those 7-8 dead conscripts are also removing a minimum of 4 more bodies from the unit at the end of the turn. With the Commissar it is still 1 additional dead Conscript. If you want to give the Conscripts orders too, you need an officer as well standing right on top of them. Remember, Conscripts live and die by their buff auras - if they get out of it for any reason they are going to drop.
Conscripts can use a nudge, but nerfing the Commissar to be completely unusable is not the answer. Instead giving Conscripts some "Untested" rule, that makes them suffer 1d3 or 1d6 losses to morale from a Commissar would probably fix things - they are still a roadblock but morale still shifts them.
On the other hand, probably the best answer is to just ignore them - fire your big guns at the tanks, and only fire your leftover guns at the Conscripts - its not like they are going to be going anywhere fast without dedicating officers left and right to have them march.
I did factor in the cost of the commissar and the commander. As for the morale losses, I think that MEQ lose more points on average from those. I don't want to include morale losses - if you are trying to kill a conscript unit you are probably putting more fire into the same unit from multiple sources, with only 1 morale loss in total.
Marmatag wrote: If you throw 80 Bolter dice at conscripts, that's only 30 dead. That takes more than double the cost of the squad, counting the commissar, to deal 60% damage. It's hard to think of a unit that isn't blatantly undercosted, where you could invest more than double its cost in the *most optimal* method of removal, and deal only 60% damage.
Imagine throwing 1,000 points worth of melta, in melta range, into an imperial knight, and seeing it still running around with 8 wounds remaining. That's the level of defensive efficiency the conscripts enjoy.
I would change conscripts so that:
1. A commissar can only affect 1 squad of conscripts.
2. Morale losses /w commissar are reduced to 1/2, not to 1.
3. Commissars are no longer characters.
There is a huge difference in intent that you're ignoring here.
You don't take an imperial knight in order to use it's large wound pool as a delaying tactic. You take them because they carry a freaking ton of guns, all of which are extremely scary.
Conscripts, OTOH, are not taken for their scary flash-lights or lack of melee weapons. You take them specifically because they take a while to kill. Any damage they deal is just a bonus.
These two units have completely different goals, and are completely non-comparable.
Better comparisons are large squad units like Tyranid Hormagaunts, Termagaunts, Genestealers, or Ripper Swarms. Necron Scarabs. Ork Boyz and Kommandos. Chaos Cultists, Brimstone Horrors, and Tzaangors. Tau Empire Kroot. Warlock-supported storm guardians, Wytches, and beast cults.
Conscripts are, arguably (very arguably. There are many arguments against) the top of this pile. Comparing them to an Imperial Knight is really, really disingenuous.
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ross-128 wrote: And their primary purpose is to be a damage sponge. If "efficiently' removing them from the board was trivial, they wouldn't be much of a sponge now would they?
Besides, gaunts are arguably overcosted because they don't stack up so well against Boyz either.
Conscripts have a clearly defined role and they're good at doing it. Why is that a bad thing?
Gaunts have advantages over boyz and conscripts. First, both boyz and gaunts can move-advance-shoot-and-assault. This justifies a LOT of their additional costs. Second, Boyz don't have access to a monstrous character that poops out 10 additional gaunts per turn for no additional points. Sure you have to run them un-upgraded to take advantage of it, but that's one hell of a tarpitting mechanism. All on top of being completely immune to morale. Not "might as well as be immune", like Orks who will fail morale like anyone else in the game if you can kill at least half of the squad if they're even a little bit isolated from the rest of the ork army.
That is a good point about the Tervigon. It could pretty much be considered the 'gaunt equivalent of a commissar. It makes them fearless (real fearless, which is better than the "discount fearless" a commissar grants), it's a beefy MC in its own right, and it allows the gaunts to basically pretend they're necrons, any you kill are likely to come back.
For space marines: Centurion Devastator Squad. Heavy bolters and Hurricane bolters. You will out range them at the beginning of the game and you should have first turn. you will be killing 6 conscripts at 36 inch, 12.5 at 24 inch., and 18.3 at 12 inch. 50 conscripts with a commissar and orders will be doing 0 wounds at 36 in. 1.6 wounds at 24 in. and 3.2 wounds at 12 inch. Utilize the fact that you should have first turn and weapons range. You don't have to worry about cover because of the omniscope, and you can move and shoot heavy weapons. These guys should win the firefight and are capable of killing more than just conscripts if you are facing a different type of army. Or two razorbacks with twin assault cannons. you will be killing 11.5 per turn at 24 inch. 50 with FRFSRF will be doing 1.6 wounds back at 24 inch.
Conscripts can be defeated if you have the correct weapons. You can't win a tournament buy spamming grav and melta anymore. You need to add a dedicated anti infantry element to your army in 8th. This is part of the reason IG are doing so well right now is because they always have dedicated anti infantry firepower due to numbers of shots that in previous editions would have been wasted because of the lack of split fire.
ross-128 wrote: That is a good point about the Tervigon. It could pretty much be considered the 'gaunt equivalent of a commissar. It makes them fearless (real fearless, which is better than the "discount fearless" a commissar grants), it's a beefy MC in its own right, and it allows the gaunts to basically pretend they're necrons, any you kill are likely to come back.
And how much does it cost? 220 points before factoring in wargear. That puts a pretty har dlimit on how many you field, and considering it has no ranged weapons besides a piddly 18" assault 4 heavy bolter and all of 3 melee attacks, you are taking it entirely for the aura.
The HQ does almost nothing besides buff and cost more than a squad of conscripts with two HQs buffing it, and you are like "see this proves conscripts aren't OP!" Pricing is everything guys, and Tyranids actually have to pay reasonable points for the advantages they get.
Arandmoor wrote: Gaunts have advantages over boyz and conscripts. First, both boyz and gaunts can move-advance-shoot-and-assault.
No they can't. They cannot advance and charge in the same turn. They can shoot and charge, but every unit can do that. They cna advance and shoot at a penalty to the hit roll, but that partially compensates for the reduced range on their weapons (12 and 18 comapred to 24 for conscripts).
Howscat wrote: For space marines: Centurion Devastator Squad. Heavy bolters and Hurricane bolters. You will out range them at the beginning of the game and you should have first turn. you will be killing 6 conscripts at 36 inch, 12.5 at 24 inch., and 18.3 at 12 inch. 50 conscripts with a commissar and orders will be doing 0 wounds at 36 in. 1.6 wounds at 24 in. and 3.2 wounds at 12 inch. Utilize the fact that you should have first turn and weapons range. You don't have to worry about cover because of the omniscope, and you can move and shoot heavy weapons. These guys should win the firefight and are capable of killing more than just conscripts if you are facing a different type of army. Or two razorbacks with twin assault cannons. you will be killing 11.5 per turn at 24 inch. 50 with FRFSRF will be doing 1.6 wounds back at 24 inch.
Conscripts can be defeated if you have the correct weapons. You can't win a tournament buy spamming grav and melta anymore. You need to add a dedicated anti infantry element to your army in 8th. This is part of the reason IG are doing so well right now is because they always have dedicated anti infantry firepower due to numbers of shots that in previous editions would have been wasted because of the lack of split fire.
Okay, now try listing a few units that don't pay a huge point increase over the conscripts to slowly chip away at them over multiple turns, maybe killing them near the final turn.
Yes they can die, they just take way more firepower than their price tag justifies. More than any other unit of a similar cost. If you disagree, find me any infantry unit that is, for its price, as tough as conscripts. I'll wait.
Howscat wrote: For space marines: Centurion Devastator Squad. Heavy bolters and Hurricane bolters. You will out range them at the beginning of the game and you should have first turn. you will be killing 6 conscripts at 36 inch, 12.5 at 24 inch., and 18.3 at 12 inch. 50 conscripts with a commissar and orders will be doing 0 wounds at 36 in. 1.6 wounds at 24 in. and 3.2 wounds at 12 inch. Utilize the fact that you should have first turn and weapons range. You don't have to worry about cover because of the omniscope, and you can move and shoot heavy weapons. These guys should win the firefight and are capable of killing more than just conscripts if you are facing a different type of army. Or two razorbacks with twin assault cannons. you will be killing 11.5 per turn at 24 inch. 50 with FRFSRF will be doing 1.6 wounds back at 24 inch.
Conscripts can be defeated if you have the correct weapons. You can't win a tournament buy spamming grav and melta anymore. You need to add a dedicated anti infantry element to your army in 8th. This is part of the reason IG are doing so well right now is because they always have dedicated anti infantry firepower due to numbers of shots that in previous editions would have been wasted because of the lack of split fire.
Wow. That's actually pretty reasonable. You there, STOP BEING REASONABLE!
Howscat wrote: For space marines: Centurion Devastator Squad. Heavy bolters and Hurricane bolters. You will out range them at the beginning of the game and you should have first turn. you will be killing 6 conscripts at 36 inch, 12.5 at 24 inch., and 18.3 at 12 inch. 50 conscripts with a commissar and orders will be doing 0 wounds at 36 in. 1.6 wounds at 24 in. and 3.2 wounds at 12 inch. Utilize the fact that you should have first turn and weapons range. You don't have to worry about cover because of the omniscope, and you can move and shoot heavy weapons. These guys should win the firefight and are capable of killing more than just conscripts if you are facing a different type of army. Or two razorbacks with twin assault cannons. you will be killing 11.5 per turn at 24 inch. 50 with FRFSRF will be doing 1.6 wounds back at 24 inch.
Conscripts can be defeated if you have the correct weapons. You can't win a tournament buy spamming grav and melta anymore. You need to add a dedicated anti infantry element to your army in 8th. This is part of the reason IG are doing so well right now is because they always have dedicated anti infantry firepower due to numbers of shots that in previous editions would have been wasted because of the lack of split fire.
Wow. That's actually pretty reasonable. You there, STOP BEING REASONABLE!
Until you look at the pricetag, and realize once again it's some overspending to slowly chip away at a unit. It's amazing how balanced things look when you totally ignore points, the balancing measure of the game, and just assume that as long as some unit of some price cna kill the unit in any time frame, things must be balanced. .
if conscripts cost four points, well he'd have a point. Because then the cost would actually be reasonable. But not right now.
Oh and again, if you wanna argue that conscripts should be that tough... show me any other unit of infantry that tough. I'll wait.
Make conscript blobs fall apart as they take casualties. 40 man reduced to 30? have to roll another d6 on your moral tests (and make them actually take them gw...). Add another at 20.
Represents the low quality of the horse as it loses cohesion.
Since there is no weapon answer for it, go mechanical.
And how much does it cost? 220 points before factoring in wargear. That puts a pretty har dlimit on how many you field, and considering it has no ranged weapons besides a piddly 18" assault 4 heavy bolter and all of 3 melee attacks, you are taking it entirely for the aura.
Wait, so you're saying that for 40 points more than conscripts and a commissar, you can a leman russ hull that can create 50+ guys over a game who are arguably as good as conscripts, it comes with a fearless bubble, reroll 1s to hit, and psychic powers? And it has an heavy bolter on it that matches range synergy with the things it creates, which it also buffs?
ross-128 wrote: To be honest, if they were going to cost the same as guardsmen I would want them to have BS4+. They can keep their WS5+ and LD4, but they'd at least need BS4+. At that point they'd still be strictly worse than guardsmen on their own, but applying their buff efficiency to BS4+ would be enough to make up their other drawbacks.
With their current stat line, if I had to choose between 4-point conscripts and 4-point guardsmen I'd take the guardsmen every time.
As far as the comparison between guardsmen and space marines, the difference between them is quite small and is entirely accounted for by the fact that a tactical marine is T4/3+, LD7/8, has ATSKNF, has Chapter Tactics, and has an extra weapon that they basically just use for melee. The tactical marine is paying for a good deal more than just its ability to wound T3 models.
After all, let's say hypothetically we made tactical marines just as cheap a source of shooting as conscripts, and we made conscripts just as easy to remove from the board. Would that be fair to the conscripts? Or would the conscripts be screwed because a tactical marine can do everything they do just as well, while also enjoying a bunch of other advantages that they don't pay for?
Yeah. 4 point conscripts would solve the "conscript problem" because 4 points is too much per model when compared to normal guard infantry to justify taking them at all!
Of course, I'm still not convinced that conscript spam is a problem. Point for point comparisons aren't necessarily useful because you have to take the context of the army in question into account. Like it or not, not all units are created equal, nor should they be.
Besides which, the commissar's ignore-morale ability is a bubble, which means if you pushed conscripts up to 4 ppm, you would just see the 50-man squads replaced with 5 10-man infantry squads bereft of special weapons. They would lose the single-unit benefits, but also gain encapsulation of wounds (any overkill thrown against any one squad would be wasted. You don't suffer that with conscripts) and they could maneuver independently of each other. Normal infantry squads also fight and shoot better.
The only disadvantages they have over conscripts are efficiency of orders and resistance to being overrun allowing you to better shield the commissar and commander.
Increasing the cost wouldn't change anything. IG is still going to tarpit you with warm bodies if that's what they need to do in order to win.
IMO, some armies need better anti-infantry firepower now that template weapons that used to be very good at AI fire got nerfed. If any changes should be made, that's it.
Howscat wrote: For space marines: Centurion Devastator Squad. Heavy bolters and Hurricane bolters. You will out range them at the beginning of the game and you should have first turn. you will be killing 6 conscripts at 36 inch, 12.5 at 24 inch., and 18.3 at 12 inch. 50 conscripts with a commissar and orders will be doing 0 wounds at 36 in. 1.6 wounds at 24 in. and 3.2 wounds at 12 inch. Utilize the fact that you should have first turn and weapons range. You don't have to worry about cover because of the omniscope, and you can move and shoot heavy weapons. These guys should win the firefight and are capable of killing more than just conscripts if you are facing a different type of army.
They are certainly decent in comparison to some of the options that SM get like whirlwinds, but you can only field 4 Centurions for the same price as 100 conscripts+support staff. They kill 16 conscripts per turn excluding morale losses at 24''. Assuming that all conscripts get to fire back, they kill 1 centurion per turn - even with their initial losses. Of course it is not realistic to assume that all conscripts get to fire back, but then again the AM player almost certainly has other weapons dedicated to killing mid-T targets with 2+ saves.
Until you look at the pricetag, and realize once again it's some overspending to slowly chip away at a unit. It's amazing how balanced things look when you totally ignore points, the balancing measure of the game, and just assume that as long as some unit of some price cna kill the unit in any time frame, things must be balanced. .
if conscripts cost four points, well he'd have a point. Because then the cost would actually be reasonable. But not right now.
Oh and again, if you wanna argue that conscripts should be that tough... show me any other unit of infantry that tough. I'll wait.
I mean, there's ultimately no way for me to tell you what you want to hear. Guard are a tarpit. They've been a tarpit since at least 5th edition. It's nothing new. Likewise, it always takes more points to kill a single unit in a single round than the unit is worth. That has also always been the case. Hell, I just fired up army builder to look at 7th edition. Conscripts are 150 points for 50 and have the same statline. Just to emphasize: The only thing that's changed about conscripts, as a self-contained unit, is that you can take them without the platoon. Back then you could even toss a lord commissar in there and you have basically the same effect as nowadays, at 30 point more then than now. Sure, you killed 33% more of them, but you still couldn't get them to run off the table. The only reason you're hearing about them now is because Infantry Squads lost combined squad, so everyone runs their blobs as Conscripts instead.
As far as points spent to points killed, I mean, Scions are typically considered broken good, and even when you build them to specifically kill MEQ, and then you have them kill MEQ in rapid fire range having suffered zero casualties (which is basically impossible) they still only kill about half their points worth. And I remind you that this is referring to a unit typically considered stupid broken good.
I don't if there should be a unit harder to kill. What I am trying to tell you is that this is no different than it's always been. It just got a little cheaper and more accessible.
SilverAlien wrote: Or we could acknowledge the issue is most characters aren't effective to nearly the degree commissars and conscripts (negating its singular main disadvantage at a token price) are when they interact, and adjust the point cost. Comissars are fine with almost every other unit, so increasing the price of conscripts is the correct call, as one disadvantage (morale) will never be felt when fielded in a sensible way.
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this.
Just kill the Commissar. It's effective and it's fluffy.
Howscat wrote: For space marines: Centurion Devastator Squad. Heavy bolters and Hurricane bolters. You will out range them at the beginning of the game and you should have first turn. you will be killing 6 conscripts at 36 inch, 12.5 at 24 inch., and 18.3 at 12 inch. 50 conscripts with a commissar and orders will be doing 0 wounds at 36 in. 1.6 wounds at 24 in. and 3.2 wounds at 12 inch. Utilize the fact that you should have first turn and weapons range. You don't have to worry about cover because of the omniscope, and you can move and shoot heavy weapons. These guys should win the firefight and are capable of killing more than just conscripts if you are facing a different type of army. Or two razorbacks with twin assault cannons. you will be killing 11.5 per turn at 24 inch. 50 with FRFSRF will be doing 1.6 wounds back at 24 inch.
Conscripts can be defeated if you have the correct weapons. You can't win a tournament buy spamming grav and melta anymore. You need to add a dedicated anti infantry element to your army in 8th. This is part of the reason IG are doing so well right now is because they always have dedicated anti infantry firepower due to numbers of shots that in previous editions would have been wasted because of the lack of split fire.
Are you serious right now, centurion devastator squads, as described, in their base configuration, are 297 points, and move 4" a turn. Assuming you dropped them magically into rapid fire range of conscripts, that's 300 points to do an expected 21 dead conscripts.
That is literally the worst investment of 300 points, assuming they could even make it there, which they couldn't unless you also bought a land raider, the only transport they can ride in, to get them there.
One list in 208 at ETC is using centurion devastator squads, and they're being used with Lascannons and missile launchers.
daedalus wrote: I don't if there should be a unit harder to kill. What I am trying to tell you is that this is no different than it's always been. It just got a little cheaper and more accessible.
They got cheaper, and most of the counter measures to them were nerfed hard. Template weapons were nerfed. Their 5+ armor is now useful against most anti infantry weapons. They had a huge number of indirect buffs you keep ignoring. They are so much better than they were previously.
Arandmoor wrote: Yeah. 4 point conscripts would solve the "conscript problem" because 4 points is too much per model when compared to normal guard infantry to justify taking them at all!
Of course, I'm still not convinced that conscript spam is a problem. Point for point comparisons aren't necessarily useful because you have to take the context of the army in question into account. Like it or not, not all units are created equal, nor should they be
Increasing the cost wouldn't change anything. IG is still going to tarpit you with warm bodies if that's what they need to do in order to win.
IMO, some armies need better anti-infantry firepower now that template weapons that used to be very good at AI fire got nerfed. If any changes should be made, that's it.
Yes it would. Do you know why? Because the current anti infantry options are priced fairly for literally every other unit in the game. Every. Single. One. That's why this problem only happens with guard. Not orks, not tyranids, not chaos even chaos. Just Guard. It's exclusively a guard problem, because everything else in the game is costed appropriately for the infantry units. It is really just you guys that are the problem.
i mena, we could add new better ways of killing infatry, then buff every other infatry unit to be costed appriately for the new effective method. That's the same thing though. because everyone else is on the same playing field.
Aesthete wrote: I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this.
Just kill the Commissar. It's effective and it's fluffy.
Adding a huge number of units to every other army to correct a problem that is almost entirely contained to a single army with one or two units is not a good solution. Every other army is working more or less correctly, with snipers being a reasonable but not required choice. Guard are the problem.
SilverAlien wrote: Adding a huge number of units to every other army to correct a problem that is almost entirely contained to a single army with one or two units is not a good solution. Every other army is working more or less correctly, with snipers being a reasonable but not required choice. Guard are the problem.
You're the one proposing "adding a huge number of units to every other army."
All I'm saying is if the Commissar is causing you pain then kill the Commissar. Build your list with a strategy in mind against the kind of enemies you may face. If your enemy has annoying buffing characters, have a plan for that. Use tactics during the actual game to execute on that strategy.
They got cheaper, and most of the counter measures to them were nerfed hard. Template weapons were nerfed. Their 5+ armor is now useful against most anti infantry weapons. They had a huge number of indirect buffs you keep ignoring. They are so much better than they were previously.
I'm not ignoring those buffs. I'm saying that they didn't change specifically. And a lot of those things are situational too. 5+ armor could have been 5+ cover in a lot of situations. The commissar was arguably even harder to kill. Yeah, templates went away. Yeah, so did blasts. Who was letting you get more than 3-4 things with a large blast to begin with anyway?
I dunno man. The one time I saw conscripts used in a game in 8th, the Eldar player basically just shot them to death. Yeah, they absorbed more bullets than they should have required. They also did about as much damage as you would expect a bunch of BS 5+ S3 guys to cause.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ooh, crap. I just had a thought:
daedalus wrote: As far as points spent to points killed, I mean, Scions are typically considered broken good, and even when you build them to specifically kill MEQ, and then you have them kill MEQ in rapid fire range having suffered zero casualties (which is basically impossible) they still only kill about half their points worth. And I remind you that this is referring to a unit typically considered stupid broken good.
Scions are decent at killing MEQ, but what you really want to be doing with them is targeting things with 2+ wounds. A scion command squad with plasma guns kills almost twice their own value in points worth of terminators the turn that they drop. You get similar results against most tanks.
ross-128 wrote: That is a good point about the Tervigon. It could pretty much be considered the 'gaunt equivalent of a commissar. It makes them fearless (real fearless, which is better than the "discount fearless" a commissar grants), it's a beefy MC in its own right, and it allows the gaunts to basically pretend they're necrons, any you kill are likely to come back.
And how much does it cost? 220 points before factoring in wargear. That puts a pretty har dlimit on how many you field, and considering it has no ranged weapons besides a piddly 18" assault 4 heavy bolter and all of 3 melee attacks, you are taking it entirely for the aura.
The HQ does almost nothing besides buff and cost more than a squad of conscripts with two HQs buffing it, and you are like "see this proves conscripts aren't OP!" Pricing is everything guys, and Tyranids actually have to pay reasonable points for the advantages they get.
If a commissar or a commander could also poop out 10 conscripts per turn, I would hope they cost 220 points before wargear. And sure it's pretty much just there for the aura, but you have to admit it's a pretty powerful aura. Also there's the fact that the Tervigon's aura supports every single nid unit in it's area at a much larger range than the commissar's. A commissar's 6" morale aura is 113 square inches. Meanwhile a Tervigon's 12" synapse aura covers 452 square inches. It covers a slightly larger area.
Arandmoor wrote: Gaunts have advantages over boyz and conscripts. First, both boyz and gaunts can move-advance-shoot-and-assault.
No they can't. They cannot advance and charge in the same turn. They can shoot and charge, but every unit can do that. They cna advance and shoot at a penalty to the hit roll, but that partially compensates for the reduced range on their weapons (12 and 18 comapred to 24 for conscripts).
I'm at work, don't have my books in front of me, and am largely going off of memory. So mistakes will be made.
I might be thinking of genestealers or termagaunts. I know that at least one (if not both) of them can move-advance-charge, but neither of them get guns.
Genestealers are also a tarpit unit. Big difference being that they won't just tie you down. They'll straight-up murder you and step over your corpse to chase down your friends.
If they cannot charge after advancing, that still means gaunts can move 8, advance 1-6 (average 3), and then shoot 12 for a 23" kill-radius. Conscripts are significantly slower than gaunts.
Howscat wrote: For space marines: Centurion Devastator Squad. Heavy bolters and Hurricane bolters. You will out range them at the beginning of the game and you should have first turn. you will be killing 6 conscripts at 36 inch, 12.5 at 24 inch., and 18.3 at 12 inch. 50 conscripts with a commissar and orders will be doing 0 wounds at 36 in. 1.6 wounds at 24 in. and 3.2 wounds at 12 inch. Utilize the fact that you should have first turn and weapons range. You don't have to worry about cover because of the omniscope, and you can move and shoot heavy weapons. These guys should win the firefight and are capable of killing more than just conscripts if you are facing a different type of army. Or two razorbacks with twin assault cannons. you will be killing 11.5 per turn at 24 inch. 50 with FRFSRF will be doing 1.6 wounds back at 24 inch.
Conscripts can be defeated if you have the correct weapons. You can't win a tournament buy spamming grav and melta anymore. You need to add a dedicated anti infantry element to your army in 8th. This is part of the reason IG are doing so well right now is because they always have dedicated anti infantry firepower due to numbers of shots that in previous editions would have been wasted because of the lack of split fire.
Okay, now try listing a few units that don't pay a huge point increase over the conscripts to slowly chip away at them over multiple turns, maybe killing them near the final turn.
Yes they can die, they just take way more firepower than their price tag justifies. More than any other unit of a similar cost. If you disagree, find me any infantry unit that is, for its price, as tough as conscripts. I'll wait.
For basic durability and ability to take wounds? You are correct. Conscripts are absolutely second to none.
However, they're absolutely bottom of the barrel for killing ability. Even being propped up by orders.
Gaunts can actually shoot and hit in CC, and have an awesome reinforcement mechanic on par with Necrons RP until you kill their pet HQ unit.
Orks will chop you to death. The math has been done, and a full mob of boyz is capable of not just tarpitting, but can actually kill Imperial Knights if they all get into CC with it rather than getting strung out.
Wytches are expensive by comparison, but don't just ignore your power weapons, they are also actually capable of pinning you in CC unless you win a roll-off to withdraw. Also, they get a fair amount of customization from combat drugs, and get significantly more powerful as the game goes on (which makes their ability to actually lock units into CC very dangerous as you cannot shoot them while they're in CC unless you're shooting pistols).
Storm Guardians have probably the smallest squad size of the tarpit units, but with Drain and/or enhance on their side, they more than make up for it. Also, they're capable of dishing out a stunning amount of damage when supported by doom as they'll get to reroll pretty much everything. While they take a LOT more support than conscripts, those support units are not married to the storm guardians like the commissar and commander tend to be, and are very flexible and valuable when supporting almost every unit in the eldar army.
Necron scarabs can be endlessly reinforced as long as the necron player doesn't mortal wound his spyders off of the table.
Cultists kind of suck unless you devote an aura or two to backing them up, but why would you when you could devote them to supporting Khorne Berzerkers? Though, the thought of 30 cultists with pistols and brutal weapons tossing out 60 attacks in CC and hitting on a 3+ while rerolling misses is a terrifying thought (prescience + a reroll aura from the chaplin...I'm assuming they can work together)
Then there's Khorne Berzerkers who, while not technically a tarpit unit, are just pants-s***ingly terrifying.
Howscat wrote: For space marines: Centurion Devastator Squad. Heavy bolters and Hurricane bolters. You will out range them at the beginning of the game and you should have first turn. you will be killing 6 conscripts at 36 inch, 12.5 at 24 inch., and 18.3 at 12 inch. 50 conscripts with a commissar and orders will be doing 0 wounds at 36 in. 1.6 wounds at 24 in. and 3.2 wounds at 12 inch. Utilize the fact that you should have first turn and weapons range. You don't have to worry about cover because of the omniscope, and you can move and shoot heavy weapons. These guys should win the firefight and are capable of killing more than just conscripts if you are facing a different type of army. Or two razorbacks with twin assault cannons. you will be killing 11.5 per turn at 24 inch. 50 with FRFSRF will be doing 1.6 wounds back at 24 inch.
Conscripts can be defeated if you have the correct weapons. You can't win a tournament buy spamming grav and melta anymore. You need to add a dedicated anti infantry element to your army in 8th. This is part of the reason IG are doing so well right now is because they always have dedicated anti infantry firepower due to numbers of shots that in previous editions would have been wasted because of the lack of split fire.
Are you serious right now, centurion devastator squads, as described, in their base configuration, are 297 points, and move 4" a turn. Assuming you dropped them magically into rapid fire range of conscripts, that's 300 points to do an expected 21 dead conscripts.
That is literally the worst investment of 300 points, assuming they could even make it there, which they couldn't unless you also bought a land raider, the only transport they can ride in, to get them there.
One list in 208 at ETC is using centurion devastator squads, and they're being used with Lascannons and missile launchers.
Um...he specifically said starting at range, where the Conscripts could literally do nothing to hurt the Centurions...and if the Conscripts don't try to rush them, they can just shoot at something else that CAN fight back. Best solution to the tar pit is to either overwhelm it right from the get go (or just reduce them to the point that they really cannot or will not have much of an effect on the game), ignore it realizing that they would need to advance to within 12 inches of you with an officer to do much damage, or tarpit it yourself with something.
Plus, with all the new codices coming out already things may shuffle around quickly. For example, we already know that Raven Guard hand out penalties for those shooting them at range, which drops Conscripts shooting even further. Depending on what Chapter Tactics, Legion Traits, Regimental Doctrines, Sept whatevers, and whatever unique stratagems each faction gets, the entire meta may shift within a couple of months.
Aesthete wrote: All I'm saying is if the Commissar is causing you pain then kill the Commissar. Build your list with a strategy in mind against the kind of enemies you may face. If your enemy has annoying buffing characters, have a plan for that. Use tactics during the actual game to execute on that strategy.
Killing the commissar does somewhat increase the efficiency of other weapons vs the conscripts. SM scouts with snipers and camo cloaks will cost you 18 pts per scout. You need about 7-8 shots on avg in order to remove a commissar, so generally 2 turns of fire with 72 pts of snipers. With him gone you essentially double the efficiency of other weapons against those conscripts, which looks good on paper but doesn't actually translate into that much higher efficiency given the cost of the snipers.
Perhaps there are alternatives to snipers? How do those armies deal with annoying buffing characters that aren't Commissars?
They either don't, or the army can't bubble wrap due to lack of super cheap expendable bodies like conscripts and you can find ways to charge/get a shot off. Which you aren't doing with a commissar until the conscripts are dead.... defeating the point.
Honestly though, you don't. Because guard is the only army that really. requires you to pick off characters. If you play chaos, you just ignore it. Because it might be helpful, but you can still fight on a level playing field without killing them. You simply can't do this with guard.
Arandmoor wrote: For basic durability and ability to take wounds? You are correct. Conscripts are absolutely second to none.
Okay, now find me one that can do it as well as conscripts could at 4 points. I'll wait more.
Holding ground is veyr important with how objectives work. If no other army can do it for a similar point cost, even if they have troops whose entire job is to do that, then their is a major problem.
You aren't the only army who is supposed to have this sort of unit, yet no other army has one comparable to conscripts. That's a balance issue.
Any flavor of Chaos Space Marine, Demons, Orks, and all Eldar except craftworld eldar I believe(but with ynnari and keywords being what they are the last is a bit debatable).
Also, to head this off, psychic powers don't compensate, one psychic power per turn isn't compensation.
Edit: I forgot about tyranids and GSC, they do not either to my knowledge.
Perhaps there are alternatives to snipers? How do those armies deal with annoying buffing characters that aren't Commissars?
To my knowledge, there are like 3 armies that don't have snipers of some kind: Tyranids, Genestealer Cults, and Orks. Tau Empire have snipers, but they're overpriced (IMO) and don't deal mortal wounds.
Tyranids have a number of options to deal with commissars and commanders, provided they're not embedded inside the conscript blob. If they're buried it shouldn't matter too much as Tyranids blob better than IG do. Sure it will take more points in nid units to kill the conscripts, but a healthy nid army should be able to kill them in one round with close to zero casualties before moving on and killing something else.
Genestealer Cults are simply not an army I have enough familiarity with to suggest counters off to top of my head without my books.
Orks...
If you have problems with conscripts as orks I honestly don't know what to tell you. One ork boy costs twice as much as a conscript, and is 4 times as killy. The solution here should be obvious and simple: They have a commissar? Who cares?
Arandmoor wrote: If they're buried it shouldn't matter too much as Tyranids blob better than IG do.
No they don't. They literally just don't. If Guard blobs were reduced to the level of tyranid blobs we'd all shut up about it. Conscripts being put to 4 point still leaves guard with better blobs than nids.
Those are also assault armies. Funny thing about the character targeting immunity... it doesn't apply to assault. If you charge and pull the commissar into a melee, you can punch him.
Since he's a separate unit from the conscripts, you can allocate those melee attacks onto him on purpose and your opponent won't be able to use wound allocation shenanigans to deflect them. A commissar can die very fast in melee.
SilverAlien wrote: Okay, now find me one that can do it as well as conscripts could at 4 points. I'll wait more.
Renegade and Heretic Mutant Rabble? They're 4 points each with a max unit size of 50. Take an Enforcer to lose D3 instead of any to morale and you have a similar unit as Conscripts, except that Mutant Rabble can sometimes get +1T, or +1A on the charge, or +2 to their Movement. They could also die in that same dice roll. The kicker is if you roll a 3 you get both the +1 attack on the charge and +2 movement, making them a great moving barrier for your HQs.
ross-128 wrote: Those are also assault armies. Funny thing about the character targeting immunity... it doesn't apply to assault. If you charge and pull the commissar into a melee, you can punch him.
Since he's a separate unit from the conscripts, you can allocate those melee attacks onto him on purpose and your opponent won't be able to use wound allocation shenanigans to deflect them. A commissar can die very fast in melee.
If the AM player places his commissar anywhere near melee range. But that won't happen.
Perhaps there are alternatives to snipers? How do those armies deal with annoying buffing characters that aren't Commissars?
To my knowledge, there are like 3 armies that don't have snipers of some kind: Tyranids, Genestealer Cults, and Orks. Tau Empire have snipers, but they're overpriced (IMO) and don't deal mortal wounds.
Tyranids have a number of options to deal with commissars and commanders, provided they're not embedded inside the conscript blob. If they're buried it shouldn't matter too much as Tyranids blob better than IG do. Sure it will take more points in nid units to kill the conscripts, but a healthy nid army should be able to kill them in one round with close to zero casualties before moving on and killing something else.
Genestealer Cults are simply not an army I have enough familiarity with to suggest counters off to top of my head without my books.
Orks...
If you have problems with conscripts as orks I honestly don't know what to tell you. One ork boy costs twice as much as a conscript, and is 4 times as killy. The solution here should be obvious and simple: They have a commissar? Who cares?
All Imperial forces can take plenty of snipers. All Chaos and Eldar can too. GSC can take guard detachments, and therefore Snipers. I think it is just Orks and Nids?
Those two razorbacks are 200pts. 50 Conscripts+ Commissar+Platoon Commander are 201 points.
You can counter conscripts with your own conscripts the same way you can counter a super heavy with your own super heavy, but you don't do that do you? You kill that imperial knight buy shooting your entire army at it for 1-2 turns or ignoring it and killing everything else. Same thing with conscripts. When your opponent has 150-200 conscripts on the field you can dedicate everything for 1-2 turns to killing them or you kill his other units and then kill them at the end. You are better off killing his other units because of how low the offensive power is of the conscripts.
I was running Militarum Tempestus with IG allies in the ITC in 7th ed. Part of my force was a 50 man conscript blob with a commissar. The conscripts where only in my are to literally die to my opponent wasting his fire power on them while the scions landed on his flank/rear to dismantle his army. Conscripts have always been good at tar pitting. If my opponent was intelligent he would ignore them and go after my scions/artillery and at the end of my game all I would have on the table was a few conscript sitting on a objective.
In 8th edition I decided I would run a pure Militarum Tempestus army. While they are strong they lack in several aspects. Scions are not good at killing hoards or super heavies. Scions shine at killing MEQ and light tanks/monsters. The worst opponent I could face would be conscript spam with baneblades in the backfield. My best options are to hide until turn three and then land on the objectives and hope he cant blast my off them at the end of the game or lure his conscripts away from his super heavies and land behind them putting everything I have into the super heavies killing them and then slowly wearing down the conscripts. In both cases I ignore the conscripts until the end. Luckily I have not faced this army yet but I have faced something similar. Trying to kill 150 ork boyz with kustum force fields is hard with a army that depends on ap rends and close range firepower.
andysonic1 wrote: Renegade and Heretic Mutant Rabble? They're 4 points each with a max unit size of 50. Take an Enforcer to lose D3 instead of any to morale and you have a similar unit as Conscripts, except that Mutant Rabble can sometimes get +1T, or +1A on the charge, or +2 to their Movement. They could also die in that same dice roll. The kicker is if you roll a 3 you get both the +1 attack on the charge and +2 movement, making them a great moving barrier for your HQs.
Chaos has access to sniper rifler Maraders. Any Chaos keyword army does, Deamon and Marine.
Oh yeah, the FAQ has probably dropped by now and that army might actually be usable. The enforcers didn't use to have the character keyword. However... mutant rabble still only have a 6+ and enforcers aren't as good. I'll say no orders but getting covenants is more or less a wash, cheaper but not as good generally. So... even at 4 points conscripts are generally better at just holding ground.
Eh... if we count that as being an option, than every imperial army has their choice of 5-6 different snipers, most of them better than marauders. But it's something at least.
ross-128 wrote: Those are also assault armies. Funny thing about the character targeting immunity... it doesn't apply to assault. If you charge and pull the commissar into a melee, you can punch him.
Since he's a separate unit from the conscripts, you can allocate those melee attacks onto him on purpose and your opponent won't be able to use wound allocation shenanigans to deflect them. A commissar can die very fast in melee.
Well... I was assuming the IG player wasn't a brain dead lemming and knew how to keep units safe. Should I also assume he doesn't bother to move towards the objectives because he has no idea how to play?
ross-128 wrote: Those are also assault armies. Funny thing about the character targeting immunity... it doesn't apply to assault. If you charge and pull the commissar into a melee, you can punch him.
Since he's a separate unit from the conscripts, you can allocate those melee attacks onto him on purpose and your opponent won't be able to use wound allocation shenanigans to deflect them. A commissar can die very fast in melee.
If the AM player places his commissar anywhere near melee range. But that won't happen.
If you have enough charge range, you can just declare the commissar as one of your charge targets. It's not like one commissar will contribute much to the overwatch, and if there are gaps wide enough to fit a base through, which there will be if the conscripts are being used as bubble wrapping, some of your charging units can just go through those to reach the commissar (because they can get within 1" during a charge). Or you can just use anything with the Fly keyword to hop over the conscripts and charge them from the side the commissar is on, or use deep striking to pop up behind them.
If the commissar is in the center of the conscript unit to prevent those things, then simply declaring him one of the charge targets will work. Reaching the conscript blob will count as a successful charge, and you'll be able to get to him with your pile-in move.
ross-128 wrote: Those are also assault armies. Funny thing about the character targeting immunity... it doesn't apply to assault. If you charge and pull the commissar into a melee, you can punch him.
Since he's a separate unit from the conscripts, you can allocate those melee attacks onto him on purpose and your opponent won't be able to use wound allocation shenanigans to deflect them. A commissar can die very fast in melee.
If the AM player places his commissar anywhere near melee range. But that won't happen.
If you have enough charge range, you can just declare the commissar as one of your charge targets. It's not like one commissar will contribute much to the overwatch, and if there are gaps wide enough to fit a base through, which there will be if the conscripts are being used as bubble wrapping, some of your charging units can just go through those to reach the commissar (because they can get within 1" during a charge). Or you can just use anything with the Fly keyword to hop over the conscripts and charge them from the side the commissar is on, or use deep striking to pop up behind them.
If the commissar is in the center of the conscript unit to prevent those things, then simply declaring him one of the charge targets will work. Reaching the conscript blob will count as a successful charge, and you'll be able to get to him with your pile-in move.
If you play against an AM player that makes a mistake like this, then count yourself lucky. There's nothing that forces him to leave base-wide gaps in his conscript line. Jump pack infantry might work, otherwise no.
My one complaint regarding Conscripts is that I don't think they should be a normal Troop choice. I'd have something like: 'For every 2 Infantry Squads you take, your army may include one unit of Conscripts that doesn't use up a FoC slot'.
This would mean that you can't have Conscripts as your sole troop choice and also means that you can't use them to fulfil Troop requirements in a Brigade, Battalion or such.
You could also consider reducing their maximum squad size (though, given the sizes of similar units, I think 40 is still reasonable).
So, taken on their own they'd still be efficient tarpits. However, you'd no longer be able to take them on their own and would have to include at least 80pts of additional infantry per Conscript squad.
This might also help Infantry Squads seem more use.
ross-128 wrote: Those are also assault armies. Funny thing about the character targeting immunity... it doesn't apply to assault. If you charge and pull the commissar into a melee, you can punch him.
Since he's a separate unit from the conscripts, you can allocate those melee attacks onto him on purpose and your opponent won't be able to use wound allocation shenanigans to deflect them. A commissar can die very fast in melee.
If the AM player places his commissar anywhere near melee range. But that won't happen.
If you have enough charge range, you can just declare the commissar as one of your charge targets. It's not like one commissar will contribute much to the overwatch, and if there are gaps wide enough to fit a base through, which there will be if the conscripts are being used as bubble wrapping, some of your charging units can just go through those to reach the commissar (because they can get within 1" during a charge). Or you can just use anything with the Fly keyword to hop over the conscripts and charge them from the side the commissar is on, or use deep striking to pop up behind them.
If the commissar is in the center of the conscript unit to prevent those things, then simply declaring him one of the charge targets will work. Reaching the conscript blob will count as a successful charge, and you'll be able to get to him with your pile-in move.
If you play against an AM player that makes a mistake like this, then count yourself lucky. There's nothing that forces him to leave base-wide gaps in his conscript line. Jump pack infantry might work, otherwise no.
Have... have you ever actually played against a player using conscripts? They're spaced out to screen a large area all the time, it's actually pretty rare for someone to pack them shoulder to shoulder. And you know how you can make a gap if one isn't there or isn't wide enough? Shoot them before you charge, which any assault unit with a gun can do now.
And you know the best part? There's only one morale phase. If you shoot the conscripts to thin them out, and then manage to take out the commissar on the charge, they'll have to roll morale against the shooting AND assault casualties.
It takes some work, it takes some positioning, and it's not an automatic win-button, but what did you expect? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women?
ross-128 wrote: Have... have you ever actually played against a player using conscripts? They're spaced out to screen a large area all the time, it's actually pretty rare for someone to pack them shoulder to shoulder. And you know how you can make a gap if one isn't there or isn't wide enough? Shoot them before you charge, which any assault unit with a gun can do now.
That's a nice condescending tone you've got there. Maybe you don't know, but it is actually the AM player that selects the casualties from your shooting. Small detail, big impact.
Not to mention no one constantly keeps any infantry at max distance constantly, even conscripts. You can condense them and spread them out as needed. If an enemy is so close they could charge a commissar 3 inches behind the first rank at least, might scoot them closer. Otherwise they aren't actually doing their job as screen unit.
ross-128 wrote: Have... have you ever actually played against a player using conscripts? They're spaced out to screen a large area all the time, it's actually pretty rare for someone to pack them shoulder to shoulder. And you know how you can make a gap if one isn't there or isn't wide enough? Shoot them before you charge, which any assault unit with a gun can do now.
That's a nice condescending tone you've got there. Maybe you don't know, but it is actually the AM player that selects the casualties from your shooting. Small detail, big impact.
Goodness, exactly this.
Who are these people playing against?
"Whoops, my commissar was easily charged."
"Whoops, my commissar was left out in the open to be sniped."
"Whoops, I left gaps in my conscripts so units can walk through them."
"Whoops, I selected conscript casualties in such a manner that made the entire wall of conscripts pointless."
And if you force them to huddle around the Commissar, then you've forced them to stop screening other units. Which means that conscript blob is now neutralized whether it dies or not, it is no longer doing its job.
Assaulting is a pretty good way to deal with them no matter what happens.
They're not Schrodinger's Conscripts, they can't be packed together to block any path to the Commissar, while simultaneously being spread out to protect the rest of the army and prevent you from going around them, and they're not going to collapse into whichever state is most advantageous the moment you observe them.
ross-128 wrote: And if you force them to huddle around the Commissar, then you've forced them to stop screening other units. Which means that conscript blob is now neutralized whether it dies or not, it is no longer doing its job.
Assaulting is a pretty good way to deal with them no matter what happens.
They're not Schrodinger's Conscripts, they can't be packed together to block any path to the Commissar, while simultaneously being spread out to protect the rest of the army and prevent you from going around them, and they're not going to collapse into whichever state is most advantageous the moment you observe them.
You can keep a few concentrated in front of the commissar and the others spread out, doesn't have to be uniform. Plus, conscripts are so cheap you can take enough to do both.
Plus, the fact you keep saying they are only good for screening doesn't make it true. They are again great for holding objectives and can put out really a lot of str 3 shooting for their cost. Which isn't hard if you aren't screening. They have more than one usage.
The problem is this assumption conscripts are bad at killing.
With orders they are not.
Warning mathhammer which some will disagree with - ignore if its going to cause upset.
Take your typical conscript formation vs a blob of 30 ork boys. Well lets be generous and say the Ork Boys start 24" away and get to go first, covering about 9", so they are now 15" away.
The guard player shoots with FRFSRF and does 100/9*5/6= 9.3~ wounds. Lets say 9 die.
The Ork player now moves forward another 5" and is 10" away. He can shoot some sluggas with the closest models. Maybe they get a kill but a good chance they don't.
Now they need a 9" charge. But they get a full burst of overwatch.
Will the whole conscript squad be in rapid fire range? Probably not at this range. So lets say a third are in 12". Another 3 orks die.
So now you are looking at a 9" charge. Initially this is pretty bad odds. If you factor in the ere we go reroll plus the ability to play with command dice its probably better. Its definitely not however guaranteed.
If they connect will it count? Sort of, but not really. Lets be generous and say all 18 Orks get into combat (and there is a good chance they won't). Well they kill 16 conscripts. The Conscripts kill another 3 Orks leaving them with 15. A further Conscript gets blammed reducing them to 33.
The 33 conscripts now leave the combat and get back into the fight in rapid fire range. Killing a further 6 Orks and reducing them to 9.
9 pistol shots kills another conscript. The Orks charge and all 32 are in rapid fire range. So another 3 Orks die. 6 Orks attack killing 5 conscripts. The remaining 27 conscripts attack back and do 2.5 wounds on the Orks - lets say 2.
There are now 4 Orks left, good chance to lose another couple to morale. The conscripts blam another member.
Next turn the conscripts leave again, rapid fire and finish off the orks.
If the Ork player's charge had failed - or the Conscripts had got off an initial volley at 24" range then it would be even more one sided. The only way the Orks win is if they get Da Jump to move far more rapidly across the table, or more likely get much closer while being ignored due to the Guard player shooting at other things.
Its the same with gaunts. If Homagaunts (or Genestealers) can get the double run boost so they can cover the whole table and get a charge off without ever taking a shooting round then sure they are lethal.
If they fail the charge though they are toast. A 200 lasgun volley will kill almost 28 gaunts and nearly 15 genestealers. If a few stragglers from that get into combat with you its not a problem - they are not going to eat through the conscripts.
Stick them in a stand up fight with other basic shooting troops. In every scenario I can think off the conscripts come off better due to their incredibly cheapness and FRFSRF.
As I see it the solution is that conscripts shouldn't be able to take orders. I'd also question whether they need 5+ armour save (but then brimstones definitely shouldn't have their 4++).
Can we wait just a little while before we nerf IG? I haven't even been able to play a game yet. Last edition there was no reason for us Guard players to even waste our time playing a game against Eldar, Necrons, or most Marine lists. Can we please be good for a little while?
crimsondave wrote: Can we wait just a little while before we nerf IG? I haven't even been able to play a game yet. Last edition there was no reason for us Guard players to even waste our time playing a game against Eldar, Necrons, or most Marine lists. Can we please be good for a little while?
Honestly, the IG army is pretty good right now without needing some bs unit sitting in front of it ruining the game for both parties.
It's almost as if walking across their entire engagement range on a barren, featureless board is a bad way to engage shooting units.
If the Orks were able to win by doing that (without some favorable RNG), just marching 180 points of Boyz across a 24" kill zone toward 211 points of Conscripts and characters, the only way for Boyz to not win at that point would be to deliberately choose to stand and shoot. A very un-Orky choice to be sure.
While Conscripts are a bit on the high end of the power curve, they're not game breaking and they certainly don't need some of the Exterminatus level nerfs that have been proposed. It seems a bigger problem is a lot of people just have some skewed expectations of Conscripts. They expect to be able to just walk up the board and sweep them aside with roughly their value in points or less. Which might be true if they're unsupported, but if their support has been removed then they have already been neutralized and are just waiting to be mopped up.
crimsondave wrote: Can we wait just a little while before we nerf IG? I haven't even been able to play a game yet. Last edition there was no reason for us Guard players to even waste our time playing a game against Eldar, Necrons, or most Marine lists. Can we please be good for a little while?
I'd like to be able to run my CSM and be effective given this is "super balanced edition" yet I can't, mainly because of guard at the moment. I'm also laughing at the idea IG had it hard last edition, at least you could compete with the less cheesy builds. Good lord, people claiming conscripts are balanced then crying how hard they had it last edition with no sense of perspective.
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ross-128 wrote: While Conscripts are a bit on the high end of the power curve, they're not game breaking and they certainly don't need some of the Exterminatus level nerfs that have been proposed. It seems a bigger problem is a lot of people just have some skewed expectations of Conscripts. They expect to be able to just walk up the board and sweep them aside with roughly their value in points or less. Which might be true if they're unsupported, but if their support has been removed then they have already been neutralized and are just waiting to be mopped up.
If by skewed you mean want them to cost the same as most units whose job they do better? No. We want them to cost a fair amount compared to every other unit like them, grits, termagaunts, mutant rabble, etc.
Why should they be both cheaper and more effective? They'd still be the best at 4 ppm, yet that'd "ruin" them somehow? We aren't the ones with skewed expectations, it's people who for some reason think they deserve a unit better than every other army.
Conscripts have a great point to wound to armor save ratio. Too good and as a result weapons are useless because there is no such thing as a anti-infantry weapon.
So we got to knock around one of those 3 things. Can't go lower than 1 wound, can't increase their price or they lose their reason for existing (a wall of meat), so we should adjust their armor save.
6+ makes every ap - weapon 50% more effective against them. 7+ would be too much and would literally result in them being vaporized within 2 turns at the most.
But I do like the other proposal in this thread. Make it so Commissars just don't effect them, that would be good as well, if ld actually became a weakness.
Tbh I actually think commissar not effecting conscripts would be too much. Reduced effectiveness would be acceptable however.
6+ armor is much the same as 4ppm, still leaves them a bit better than many compareable units, but in a much better place balance wise. No orders is also probably needed.
SilverAlien wrote: Tbh I actually think commissar not effecting conscripts would be too much. Reduced effectiveness would be acceptable however.
6+ armor is much the same as 4ppm, still leaves them a bit better than many compareable units, but in a much better place balance wise. No orders is also probably needed.
I agree with this, but it does make you wonder why the same pattern of armour is less effective on these guys.
But yea, removing the Commissar's influence is one of the least fluffy things one can do to 40k. This is literally why Commissars exist.
"Whoops, my commissar was easily charged."
"Whoops, my commissar was left out in the open to be sniped."
"Whoops, I left gaps in my conscripts so units can walk through them."
"Whoops, I selected conscript casualties in such a manner that made the entire wall of conscripts pointless."
These things just don't happen.
I haven't even found Conscripts to be a huge problem relative to just regular Guardsmen or Brimstone Horrors or whatever, but the defenses of them in here are frankly pathetic. Someone was suggesting Centurion Devastators a page back! People are talking like multiple squads of Eldar Rangers are ever worth taking on the off-chance you run into someone who leaves their Commissar in range and LoS of them. None of this is very reassuring because mostly it convinces readers that the speaker is either terrible at the game or is so desperate to rationalize Conscripts that they're not taking five seconds to think about what they're saying.
crimsondave wrote: Can we wait just a little while before we nerf IG? I haven't even been able to play a game yet. Last edition there was no reason for us Guard players to even waste our time playing a game against Eldar, Necrons, or most Marine lists. Can we please be good for a little while?
I'd like to be able to run my CSM and be effective given this is "super balanced edition" yet I can't, mainly because of guard at the moment. I'm also laughing at the idea IG had it hard last edition, at least you could compete with the less cheesy builds. Good lord, people claiming conscripts are balanced then crying how hard they had it last edition with no sense of perspective.
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ross-128 wrote: While Conscripts are a bit on the high end of the power curve, they're not game breaking and they certainly don't need some of the Exterminatus level nerfs that have been proposed. It seems a bigger problem is a lot of people just have some skewed expectations of Conscripts. They expect to be able to just walk up the board and sweep them aside with roughly their value in points or less. Which might be true if they're unsupported, but if their support has been removed then they have already been neutralized and are just waiting to be mopped up.
If by skewed you mean want them to cost the same as most units whose job they do better? No. We want them to cost a fair amount compared to every other unit like them, grits, termagaunts, mutant rabble, etc.
Why should they be both cheaper and more effective? They'd still be the best at 4 ppm, yet that'd "ruin" them somehow? We aren't the ones with skewed expectations, it's people who for some reason think they deserve a unit better than every other army.
Conscripts "ruin" the game for you? Really? That's what I'm laughing at.
Edit:
You know what....on second thought, I'm sorry. I recall the absolute futility of playing Necrons, Eldar, Tau, and Marines last edition. I don' t want to be like that.
Changing Conscripts to where Commissars don't effect them is too much imo, mainly because it is so against the fluff. Maybe for every 10 models over 10 the max lost goes up by 1? So a 50 blob could lose 4 (since somebody has to die to have a check?) Also maybe you have to have equal to or greater the number of regulars? Not sure if that helps. I'm feeling better about tons of separate squads with HBs and flamers than conscripts.
SilverAlien wrote: Tbh I actually think commissar not effecting conscripts would be too much. Reduced effectiveness would be acceptable however.
6+ armor is much the same as 4ppm, still leaves them a bit better than many compareable units, but in a much better place balance wise. No orders is also probably needed.
I agree with this, but it does make you wonder why the same pattern of armour is less effective on these guys.
But yea, removing the Commissar's influence is one of the least fluffy things one can do to 40k. This is literally why Commissars exist.
Who cares why, tabletop isn't fluffy anyway; game mechanics are more important.
I still think making conscripts squads of 10 would be best. the effect won't change too much, but it will make giving all 50 the comissair bubble much harder.
SilverAlien wrote: Tbh I actually think commissar not effecting conscripts would be too much. Reduced effectiveness would be acceptable however.
6+ armor is much the same as 4ppm, still leaves them a bit better than many compareable units, but in a much better place balance wise. No orders is also probably needed.
I agree with this, but it does make you wonder why the same pattern of armour is less effective on these guys.
But yea, removing the Commissar's influence is one of the least fluffy things one can do to 40k. This is literally why Commissars exist.
Who cares why, tabletop isn't fluffy anyway; game mechanics are more important.
The idea of a Commissar doing nothing to Conscripts is not workable. They have always been together like PB&J. What if they allowed the conscripts to use their LD value but did not limit their losses to 1?
Don't think I saw any suggestions/feedback (or really anything to suggest the post was even seen ) as to the two ideas I'd thrown out; feel like, paired, they might balance the 'horde units' a bit better (like Conscripts):
The problem with Conscripts is their synergy with Commissars; with their ability to reduce morale problems to one dead Conscript no matter how horribly you maim the unit itself it becomes harder to attrit them down.
I've mentioned before just giving Conscripts another ability specific to Commissars: Get back in line you rabble!; Instead of restricting casualties due to failed morale checks to one, Commissars and Lord Commissars using the Summary Execution rule halve (rounding up, to a minimum of one) all casualties caused by morale to Conscript units.
The problem with hordes in general may be the lack of scalability of formerly-template weapons - where you could really punish large hordes before, most template weapons will struggle to kill large groups. Could add a rule to horde units like: Tightly packed! Roll a D6 for every wound if this unit has 15 models or more; on a 5+ the unit suffers a mortal wound in addition to normal damage.
GhostRecon wrote: Don't think I saw any suggestions/feedback (or really anything to suggest the post was even seen ) as to the two ideas I'd thrown out; feel like, paired, they might balance the 'horde units' a bit better (like Conscripts):
The problem with Conscripts is their synergy with Commissars; with their ability to reduce morale problems to one dead Conscript no matter how horribly you maim the unit itself it becomes harder to attrit them down.
I've mentioned before just giving Conscripts another ability specific to Commissars: Get back in line you rabble!; Instead of restricting casualties due to failed morale checks to one, Commissars and Lord Commissars using the Summary Execution rule halve (rounding up, to a minimum of one) all casualties caused by morale to Conscript units.
The problem with hordes in general may be the lack of scalability of formerly-template weapons - where you could really punish large hordes before, most template weapons will struggle to kill large groups. Could add a rule to horde units like: Tightly packed! Roll a D6 for every wound if this unit has 15 models or more; on a 5+ the unit suffers a mortal wound in addition to normal damage.
So what is everyone's plan for when conscripts get nerfed? IG players will still be bringing 150 infantry to the table but these ones will have flamers and heavy bolters on them. They will also have plenty of points to spam artillery and tanks. instead of taking heavy bolter sponson on their tanks they will put those bolters on their men. If you are struggling to kill 150 conscripts what are you going to do against ones with heavy weapons? Oh and they have better leadership and ballistic skill. Guard players will not struggle to get the number of orders or commissars they need. Can you comfortably kill 150 men that are T3 5+ models with your army?
IG players will not blink an eye from running 150 conscripts to 150 guardsman. What are you going to change about your play style, weapons loadouts, or unit choice to deal with the "threatening" guardsman?
Those can be addressed when we reach that point, right now we got a unit that has its head pretty far above everything else. Let us fix that first before we move onto the next boogeymen. Or if you want to keep focusing on it let us look at how different 15 units of guardsmen are different from 3 units of conscripts.
I ran conscripts as a test once because everyone was going mental about them. I wasn't any more impressed than I was in previous editions.
My current plan is to do what I'm doing now. My "conscripts" are infantry squads with plasma guns, plasma pistols, and power swords. I have a couple commissars and company commanders to give them orders and reliable staying power. I spent a few more points and get the exact same effect, except they've become significantly more dangerous in shooting, and you get a bit less wound allocation shenanigans. It's basically what I've been doing since 5th edition. Only difference is that instead of Chimeras with vets, I have scions.
So I'm not actually getting affected by any conscript nerfs until the declarations that the sky is falling get us back to the point where we're 50 point squads with a command squad overhead and paying 15 points per scion.
All things considered, it'd probably be effective even then.
daedalus wrote: I ran conscripts as a test once because everyone was going mental about them. I wasn't any more impressed than I was in previous editions.
My current plan is to do what I'm doing now. My "conscripts" are infantry squads with plasma guns, plasma pistols, and power swords. I have a couple commissars and company commanders to give them orders and reliable staying power. I spent a few more points and get the exact same effect, except they've become significantly more dangerous in shooting, and you get a bit less wound allocation shenanigans. It's basically what I've been doing since 5th edition. Only difference is that instead of Chimeras with vets, I have scions.
So I'm not actually getting affected by any conscript nerfs until the declarations that the sky is falling get us back to the point where we're 50 point squads with a command squad overhead and paying 15 points per scion.
All things considered, it'd probably be effective even then.
did you run them in a single 50 man blob? or 10 man squads? the blob seems to be what is the issue for people.
The infantry I run in 10 man squads, because I'm not sure you can run them any other way. Unless you have enough firepower to kill one in one turn, it really doesn't make that much of a difference other than that you're paying a little more points. It was still enough to stonewall a mean GK list with them.
I think even if the naysayers get what they want, they'll find that it's not going to matter much in the end.
BrianDavion wrote: I still think making conscripts squads of 10 would be best. the effect won't change too much, but it will make giving all 50 the comissair bubble much harder.
I'd actually consider that a bigger nerf than some suggested. I feel like they struggle as screening units, and don't gain much extra form leaders. 20 might work alright though.
daedalus wrote: I ran conscripts as a test once because everyone was going mental about them. I wasn't any more impressed than I was in previous editions.
My current plan is to do what I'm doing now. My "conscripts" are infantry squads with plasma guns, plasma pistols, and power swords. I have a couple commissars and company commanders to give them orders and reliable staying power. I spent a few more points and get the exact same effect, except they've become significantly more dangerous in shooting, and you get a bit less wound allocation shenanigans. It's basically what I've been doing since 5th edition. Only difference is that instead of Chimeras with vets, I have scions
I face infantry squads like that and have no issue. I can wipe a couple squads easily in a turn, and that actually leaves the commissar and commander vulnerable, whereas wound allocation basically guarantees I'm not punching holes in conscripts, not while my opponent controls who dies. It feels like I actually have counter play options available basically, and the pricing feels less horrifically abusive in the first place.
Tyel wrote: The problem is this assumption conscripts are bad at killing.
With orders they are not.
Warning mathhammer which some will disagree with - ignore if its going to cause upset.
Take your typical conscript formation vs a blob of 30 ork boys. Well lets be generous and say the Ork Boys start 24" away and get to go first, covering about 9", so they are now 15" away.
The guard player shoots with FRFSRF and does 100/9*5/6= 9.3~ wounds. Lets say 9 die.
The Ork player now moves forward another 5" and is 10" away. He can shoot some sluggas with the closest models. Maybe they get a kill but a good chance they don't.
Now they need a 9" charge. But they get a full burst of overwatch.
Will the whole conscript squad be in rapid fire range? Probably not at this range. So lets say a third are in 12". Another 3 orks die.
So now you are looking at a 9" charge. Initially this is pretty bad odds. If you factor in the ere we go reroll plus the ability to play with command dice its probably better. Its definitely not however guaranteed.
If they connect will it count? Sort of, but not really. Lets be generous and say all 18 Orks get into combat (and there is a good chance they won't). Well they kill 16 conscripts. The Conscripts kill another 3 Orks leaving them with 15. A further Conscript gets blammed reducing them to 33.
The 33 conscripts now leave the combat and get back into the fight in rapid fire range. Killing a further 6 Orks and reducing them to 9.
9 pistol shots kills another conscript. The Orks charge and all 32 are in rapid fire range. So another 3 Orks die. 6 Orks attack killing 5 conscripts. The remaining 27 conscripts attack back and do 2.5 wounds on the Orks - lets say 2.
There are now 4 Orks left, good chance to lose another couple to morale. The conscripts blam another member.
Next turn the conscripts leave again, rapid fire and finish off the orks.
If the Ork player's charge had failed - or the Conscripts had got off an initial volley at 24" range then it would be even more one sided. The only way the Orks win is if they get Da Jump to move far more rapidly across the table, or more likely get much closer while being ignored due to the Guard player shooting at other things.
Its the same with gaunts. If Homagaunts (or Genestealers) can get the double run boost so they can cover the whole table and get a charge off without ever taking a shooting round then sure they are lethal.
If they fail the charge though they are toast. A 200 lasgun volley will kill almost 28 gaunts and nearly 15 genestealers. If a few stragglers from that get into combat with you its not a problem - they are not going to eat through the conscripts.
Stick them in a stand up fight with other basic shooting troops. In every scenario I can think off the conscripts come off better due to their incredibly cheapness and FRFSRF.
As I see it the solution is that conscripts shouldn't be able to take orders. I'd also question whether they need 5+ armour save (but then brimstones definitely shouldn't have their 4++).
I can get 37 real guardsman for the same cost of the conscripts. Round it up to 40 Real guardsmen will hit on 4+, rather than a 5+.
As per your theoretical, at 24" now I'm hitting you with 80 shots, 40 hits, 13 wounds, 11 damage. At which point you still have 26 boyz left by the way. At 12" I'm hitting you for double that. Total cost is 220 points for the two company commanders, and the 40 guardsman.
But would you be happier if orks could walk straight across a field and kill an enemy unit of equivalent points? An enemy unit which happens to be a shooty unit? Then we'll have the IG players screaming their units are worthless because you just walk up and kill them without worrying about anything!
The problem with hordes in general may be the lack of scalability of formerly-template weapons - where you could really punish large hordes before, most template weapons will struggle to kill large groups. Could add a rule to horde units like: Tightly packed! Roll a D6 for every wound if this unit has 15 models or more; on a 5+ the unit suffers a mortal wound in addition to normal damage.
I'll take dealing with odd looking mobs of troops over the excessively time consuming and impossible to point balance template weapon concept. I love not having to futz around with the templates anymore. I wish 8th edition fantasy had ditched them too.
GhostRecon wrote: Don't think I saw any suggestions/feedback (or really anything to suggest the post was even seen ) as to the two ideas I'd thrown out; feel like, paired, they might balance the 'horde units' a bit better (like Conscripts):
The problem with Conscripts is their synergy with Commissars; with their ability to reduce morale problems to one dead Conscript no matter how horribly you maim the unit itself it becomes harder to attrit them down.
I've mentioned before just giving Conscripts another ability specific to Commissars: Get back in line you rabble!; Instead of restricting casualties due to failed morale checks to one, Commissars and Lord Commissars using the Summary Execution rule halve (rounding up, to a minimum of one) all casualties caused by morale to Conscript units.
The problem with hordes in general may be the lack of scalability of formerly-template weapons - where you could really punish large hordes before, most template weapons will struggle to kill large groups. Could add a rule to horde units like: Tightly packed! Roll a D6 for every wound if this unit has 15 models or more; on a 5+ the unit suffers a mortal wound in addition to normal damage.
Having commissar's be less effective is viable, but it's a question fo whether rules like that are the best way to handle it if other more basic adjustments will do it.
I do think template weapons scaling with size could be a good idea, but at the same time I'm reluctant to do that while other armies (again tyranids and orks) don't feel like they need the extra punishment.
I face infantry squads like that and have no issue. I can wipe a couple squads easily in a turn, and that actually leaves the commissar and commander vulnerable, whereas wound allocation basically guarantees I'm not punching holes in conscripts, not while my opponent controls who dies. It feels like I actually have counter play options available basically, and the pricing feels less horrifically abusive in the first place.
Which is crazy to me, because I watched GK literally bounce off of them. Sure, they were gone by the end of it, but the rest of my army saw to that, and then some. I might have given up 5-6 kill points worth of things that game, and it was less than half my army. As a GK player as well, I feel like there wasn't too much better he could have done against me.
We've gone back and forth with various hypotheticals, but what armies do you actually play, dude? I've not got the number of games in yet that I wished I would have, so I'm curious to what your counters are.to infantry with something other than Eldar or GK..
Conscripts are less effective than most people are afraid of, they have trouble getting in range together and a lot of math hammer throws around the 200 shots from 50 conscripts number but there's pretty much never a full strength conscript unit in rapid fire range with orders left to use in the course of a normal game.
If something is too strong this is the edition where things can and will get rebalanced, but I'm not sure where the line is here because i don't think anyone here is really afraid of conscripts. They're afraid of conscripts backed up by artillery and buff characters and maybe some deepstriking plasma units but that stuff all together is kind of just a good army list of synergizing units using a strategy? The other couple problem lists are much worse culprits of point/rule imbalance so if they do alter conscripts i hope the nerf bat is swung very softly. If someone had asked me before the edition what the most viable list that uses conscripts should look like thematically this close to the ideal and i'm pretty happy with it being one of the big archetypes to beat.
Howscat wrote: So what is everyone's plan for when conscripts get nerfed? IG players will still be bringing 150 infantry to the table but these ones will have flamers and heavy bolters on them. They will also have plenty of points to spam artillery and tanks. instead of taking heavy bolter sponson on their tanks they will put those bolters on their men. If you are struggling to kill 150 conscripts what are you going to do against ones with heavy weapons? Oh and they have better leadership and ballistic skill. Guard players will not struggle to get the number of orders or commissars they need. Can you comfortably kill 150 men that are T3 5+ models with your army?
IG players will not blink an eye from running 150 conscripts to 150 guardsman. What are you going to change about your play style, weapons loadouts, or unit choice to deal with the "threatening" guardsman?
Thank you. Go ahead & nerf conscripts even though their point cost is the same as 7th where IG languished. Literally changes nothing. I'll still be fielding 100-150+ infantry. Fact of the matter is, most guard players are choosing to run heavy infantry this edition because IG vehicle costs are outrageous & most of the Leman Russ variants are not worth fielding. They weren't worth their point cost in 7th and needed a 20-30% point reduction. Instead their damage output stayed the same or decreased & their point cost increased. So whereas before IG players had 1000pts of armor, now they are rolling with 1000pts of infantry.
Howscat wrote: So what is everyone's plan for when conscripts get nerfed? IG players will still be bringing 150 infantry to the table but these ones will have flamers and heavy bolters on them. They will also have plenty of points to spam artillery and tanks. instead of taking heavy bolter sponson on their tanks they will put those bolters on their men. If you are struggling to kill 150 conscripts what are you going to do against ones with heavy weapons? Oh and they have better leadership and ballistic skill. Guard players will not struggle to get the number of orders or commissars they need. Can you comfortably kill 150 men that are T3 5+ models with your army?
IG players will not blink an eye from running 150 conscripts to 150 guardsman. What are you going to change about your play style, weapons loadouts, or unit choice to deal with the "threatening" guardsman?
Thank you. Go ahead & nerf conscripts even though their point cost is the same as 7th where IG languished. Literally changes nothing. I'll still be fielding 100-150+ infantry. Fact of the matter is, most guard players are choosing to run heavy infantry this edition because IG vehicle costs are outrageous & most of the Leman Russ variants are not worth fielding. They weren't worth their point cost in 7th and needed a 20-30% point reduction. Instead their damage output stayed the same or decreased & their point cost increased. So whereas before IG players had 1000pts of armor, now they are rolling with 1000pts of infantry.
Wooo! And I look forward to having to fight against it with 100 Space Marines. Massed infantry all around!
I face infantry squads like that and have no issue. I can wipe a couple squads easily in a turn, and that actually leaves the commissar and commander vulnerable, whereas wound allocation basically guarantees I'm not punching holes in conscripts, not while my opponent controls who dies. It feels like I actually have counter play options available basically, and the pricing feels less horrifically abusive in the first place.
Which is crazy to me, because I watched GK literally bounce off of them. Sure, they were gone by the end of it, but the rest of my army saw to that, and then some. I might have given up 5-6 kill points worth of things that game, and it was less than half my army. As a GK player as well, I feel like there wasn't too much better he could have done against me.
We've gone back and forth with various hypotheticals, but what armies do you actually play, dude? I've not got the number of games in yet that I wished I would have, so I'm curious to what your counters are.to infantry with something other than Eldar or GK..
Well, my CSM/DG haven't been getting much usage, so I'm not 100% sure what works best. My army is in a bit of a weird spot since the edition change hit. The plague drone is alright, and noise marines and berserkers worked well for anti infantry. I've borrowed some of the new tsons terminators and found they were good.
For my admech, I've been using snipers, then relying on infiltrators, kastelans, and onagers. Infiltrators are my favorites, they are expensive but not absurdly so, and can easily clear a weakened unit with their pistols before charging something else. Icarus array onager sbacked by Cawl are actually really good anti infantry, if the enemy lacks air units to shoot at. They are better for their points than heavy phosphor onagers weirdly.
Vanguard I want to like, but morale is such an issue for them, and we can't afford the slots for MSU. So mostly they have been retired. I am considering some of the electro gauntlet tech priests instead, but am unsure.
Commissar Benny wrote: Thank you. Go ahead & nerf conscripts even though their point cost is the same as 7th where IG languished. Literally changes nothing. I'll still be fielding 100-150+ infantry. Fact of the matter is, most guard players are choosing to run heavy infantry this edition because IG vehicle costs are outrageous & most of the Leman Russ variants are not worth fielding. They weren't worth their point cost in 7th and needed a 20-30% point reduction. Instead their damage output stayed the same or decreased & their point cost increased. So whereas before IG players had 1000pts of armor, now they are rolling with 1000pts of infantry.
Have you noticed those same nerfs to template weapons did a ;lot to make your conscripts more survivable? Plus the nerfs to ap meaning they get way more usage out of their armor? They can now take orders without a leadership test even!
Saying they'd be useless at the same cost as in 7th ignores how many buffs conscripts received due to the edition change.
Fair enough. CSM have been a blind spot for me this edition since I don't play anyone who has them since I gave up on competitive play. I never bothered to learn Mechanicus either because I quit in early 7th because I took one look at formations and saw the beginning of the end well before Mechanicus was even a realization..
Give me a day. Let me see if I can come up with a list with one of your armies that I think can either deal with or ignore 1-2 conscript squads. I mean, I gotta work in about 5 hours, but I think i'll find time to take a look at it, and if I fail, then I just make my argument look more like the TFG one, right?
As an aside, if anyone has any reasonable counters for me, let me know. I have the stuff to prove it so long as I know what it is.
Berzerkers do a solid number on Conscripts since they get to fight twice and have a bonus natural attack, plus a chainsword for 3 Attacks per model, twice for 6 total. Hackttyhackittyhackittyhackitty.
SilverAlien wrote: Have you noticed those same nerfs to template weapons did a ;lot to make your conscripts more survivable? Plus the nerfs to ap meaning they get way more usage out of their armor? They can now take orders without a leadership test even! Saying they'd be useless at the same cost as in 7th ignores how many buffs conscripts received due to the edition change.
The nerf to template weapons has been a boon to all horde armies yes. I also agree that the changes to AP on many weapons have allowed horde armies to get more usage out of their armor. The leadership change was also a very nice improvement for IG players. My reference to useless units in 8th edition was referring to Leman Russ tanks. There is very little reason to take them. They required a point reduction in 7th, had no increase in damage output in 8th, yet increased in points.
Now if we were to judge conscripts solely based off what we just listed above, yeah I could see how many might feel like they are OP. What they don't realize is that the inclusion of conscripts as a troop choice came at a price. Combined squads is gone. We use to be able to take multiple infantry squads & combine them. You can't do that anymore. That is big deal. If we could do that in 8th edition that would be amazing.
If they want to increase the cost of conscripts to 4ppm fine. Here is the problem though. If conscripts are 4ppm, infantry squads need to be 5ppm. If infantry squads are 5ppm, the cost of heavy weapons teams increase as well. So now, by increasing the cost of 1 unit, you just increased the cost of 1/2 the army.
The whole point of the guard since its inception has been to "drown your opponent in bodies", to win through war of attrition & for the first time the tabletop accurately reflects that & the community at large is losing their mind.
Benny don't get all hyperbolic; at this point its about a unit that is overperforming, it needs to change. Can you list one reason why conscripts should stay EXACTLY as they are?
Because a strategy that takes as little thought as "spam infantry, move forward, win" isn't exactly compelling in the first place. An army whose central element is that should have really obvious counters which blow it out of the water.
Which is true when nids, orks, and demons try the "drown you in bodies" strategy. But for guard... nothing clears conscripts efficiently. Nothing. No infantry unit has the absurd resilience of conscripts, and they have better damage output than many thanks to FRFSRF.
I don't know how to make this more clear, it could be effective without being broken. It currently is broken. You can look at every other unit and army and see nothing takes that sort of dedicated firepower to kill. It's overpowered.
SilverAlien wrote: Tbh I actually think commissar not effecting conscripts would be too much. Reduced effectiveness would be acceptable however.
6+ armor is much the same as 4ppm, still leaves them a bit better than many compareable units, but in a much better place balance wise. No orders is also probably needed.
It could also simply be that Commissars are too good for their points.
SilverAlien wrote: Tbh I actually think commissar not effecting conscripts would be too much. Reduced effectiveness would be acceptable however.
6+ armor is much the same as 4ppm, still leaves them a bit better than many compareable units, but in a much better place balance wise. No orders is also probably needed.
It could also simply be that Commissars are too good for their points.
The problem is the Commissars is fine with 10 man squads, but without any scaling, their ability becomes too strong with 50 man blobs. If Commissars got a price hike that goes beyond a mild slap on the wrist, it would reach a point where there is no point to taking one with standard Infantry Squads. That is why the best ideas in my opinion simply add a scaling to the ability, as the Commissar has to BLAM more ill trained Conscripts to keep them in order than he would with a standard well trained squad.
crimsondave wrote: Can we wait just a little while before we nerf IG? I haven't even been able to play a game yet. Last edition there was no reason for us Guard players to even waste our time playing a game against Eldar, Necrons, or most Marine lists. Can we please be good for a little while?
This is a very disappointing thing to see. So you're fine with the game being unbalanced as long as you're the one on top. Some of us would rather there just not be any blatantly busted units, ours or the opponent's. Y'know, because some of us have some measure of sportsmanship.
I have a question for those of you who have had frustrating games against conscripts: what did they actually do?
I ask because I keep hearing that they are used as bubble-wrap for artillery/tanks and that they were a pain to kill.
But, given that intervening models don't provide cover in this edition (and there's no way conscripts can completely block LoS to a tank), could you not have just shot the artillery and largely ignored the conscripts? I would assume that the bulk of the enemy fire was from the tanks/artillery and not the conscripts (otherwise, why bother even using the former?), so by taking those out first you leave the enemy with a unit that is quite tough but severely lacking in firepower.
SilverAlien wrote: Tbh I actually think commissar not effecting conscripts would be too much. Reduced effectiveness would be acceptable however.
6+ armor is much the same as 4ppm, still leaves them a bit better than many compareable units, but in a much better place balance wise. No orders is also probably needed.
It could also simply be that Commissars are too good for their points.
Commissars are only too good for Conscripts. Normal Guardsmen units are max 10 models at Ld7, To have a chance of actually losing a few models, you will need to basically roll above a 8 on the morale die with modifier, which has a 50% chance if 4 models die. Instead, you pay 31 points to make sure that you only lose 1 model instead of 1-3 in this case, in a unit that has already lost ~40% of its fighting strength. If you benefit 4 squads, which is probably among the best possible scenarios, you earn your points back if you would have lost 3 models per squad to morale in a game. In this case, they are only good and definitely not "too good". Some minor increase could perhaps be justified, but when you start being able to buy another infantry squad, it's gone too far.
Instead, if you want to nerf them even more, just increase it to 1 executed model per 10 models in the starting unit (or the actual leadership loss result, whichever is lowest). So a full Conscript squad would lose at most 5 models, whereas an Infantry squad, Special Weapons squad or any other squad would only lose 1.
vipoid wrote: I have a question for those of you who have had frustrating games against conscripts: what did they actually do?
I ask because I keep hearing that they are used as bubble-wrap for artillery/tanks and that they were a pain to kill.
But, given that intervening models don't provide cover in this edition (and there's no way conscripts can completely block LoS to a tank), could you not have just shot the artillery and largely ignored the conscripts? I would assume that the bulk of the enemy fire was from the tanks/artillery and not the conscripts (otherwise, why bother even using the former?), so by taking those out first you leave the enemy with a unit that is quite tough but severely lacking in firepower.
I mean, yeah, Conscripts don't do a whole lot in the face of lots of long-range shooting, but not everyone is running an army that stands at 48" and shoots. They're excellent against CC units -- though again IME they're not that much better for this than regular infantry squads -- and the standard counter to the kind of long-range firepower Guard can put out, for armies that can't straight-up outshoot them, is to tie up their artillery in CC. Of course they also prevent Deep Striking, and it's very hard to remove a Conscript screen -- you can kill a squad of Deep Strike denying Ratlings very quickly, but the Conscripts are going to stop you from coming in anywhere near where you want to be for multiple turns. Any other sort of close-range shooting is going to have similar issues, and it's hard to just ignore the Conscripts because if you try to get close enough to them to shoot past them at the artillery they can do quite a bit of damage to you.
This is just in general something Guard should be doing. Putting cheap infantry around your artillery makes your artillery much harder to deal with for several whole factions and many popular builds for other factions.
SilverAlien wrote: Because a strategy that takes as little thought as "spam infantry, move forward, win" isn't exactly compelling in the first place. An army whose central element is that should have really obvious counters which blow it out of the water.
Which is true when nids, orks, and demons try the "drown you in bodies" strategy. But for guard... nothing clears conscripts efficiently. Nothing. No infantry unit has the absurd resilience of conscripts, and they have better damage output than many thanks to FRFSRF.
I don't know how to make this more clear, it could be effective without being broken. It currently is broken. You can look at every other unit and army and see nothing takes that sort of dedicated firepower to kill. It's overpowered.
7th ed meta: Spam riptides, sit, hellfire. Spam Drop-pod/Grav, null deploy, drop. Spam Scatbikes, turbo boost, shoot. Spam Pink Horrors, Summon, Invisibility. 8th ed meta: Spam troops/ spam flyers/ spam super heavies.
So, the meta has shifted and now we all need to be taking massed anti-infantry weapons. Even when conscripts get nerfed they will still be running 150 guardsmen every game because they need to keep you off their tanks/artillery. What are you going to do about orks? Can you kill 120 orks with 5++, can teleport, and have heavy walkers? This is looking to be the edition of massed infantry and transports.
I play Militarum Tempestus and everyone and their dog is spamming plasma. I expect plasma to get a huge points increase with the codex so I am not running more than 2 units of plasma. But you know what unit has done the most damage in all my games? Volley Gun squads. Those decent range, medium strength, medium ap shots have the tactical flexibility to wound most units and put out enough shots to work their way through hoards.
Something I'll say is that if conscripts need to be nerfed, I think we need to consider a few things:
- We should look to make the nerf(s) relatively minor at first and then progress from there. After all, one of the most frequent complaints against GW is their policy of nerfing units with a sledgehammer when a slight tweak would have done the job.
- We should look for nerfs that impact Conscripts and only Conscripts. Changing Commissars (which are fine for all other units) seems like a terrible idea. The same goes for pushing up the cost of Conscripts, as it's likely to result in IG infantry increasing in cost across the board.
- We should try to keep the fluff in mind and, at the very least, do our best not to completely contradict it.
Howscat wrote: But you know what unit has done the most damage in all my games? Volley Gun squads. Those decent range, medium strength, medium ap shots have the tactical flexibility to wound most units and put out enough shots to work their way through hoards.
Forgive me for going off topic but how do you use Volley-Gun squads? 5-man? 10-man? And do you seep-strike them, put them in vehicles or set them up on the field?
vipoid wrote: I have a question for those of you who have had frustrating games against conscripts: what did they actually do?
I ask because I keep hearing that they are used as bubble-wrap for artillery/tanks and that they were a pain to kill.
But, given that intervening models don't provide cover in this edition (and there's no way conscripts can completely block LoS to a tank), could you not have just shot the artillery and largely ignored the conscripts? I would assume that the bulk of the enemy fire was from the tanks/artillery and not the conscripts (otherwise, why bother even using the former?), so by taking those out first you leave the enemy with a unit that is quite tough but severely lacking in firepower.
I mean, yeah, Conscripts don't do a whole lot in the face of lots of long-range shooting, but not everyone is running an army that stands at 48" and shoots. They're excellent against CC units -- though again IME they're not that much better for this than regular infantry squads -- and the standard counter to the kind of long-range firepower Guard can put out, for armies that can't straight-up outshoot them, is to tie up their artillery in CC. Of course they also prevent Deep Striking, and it's very hard to remove a Conscript screen -- you can kill a squad of Deep Strike denying Ratlings very quickly, but the Conscripts are going to stop you from coming in anywhere near where you want to be for multiple turns. Any other sort of close-range shooting is going to have similar issues, and it's hard to just ignore the Conscripts because if you try to get close enough to them to shoot past them at the artillery they can do quite a bit of damage to you.
This is just in general something Guard should be doing. Putting cheap infantry around your artillery makes your artillery much harder to deal with for several whole factions and many popular builds for other factions.
I sort of empathize with this comment, but from a different direction:
If conscripts have niches where they're not good (e.g. protecting against enemy long-range shooting) and niches where they are good (e.g. screening) isn't that what you want out of a unit? Situations where it performs well and situations where it performs poorly? And wouldn't the onus be on the opponent to ensure that they do not play to the strengths of the enemy's units?
I get that outshooting guard at long range is essentially impossible for some armies, and it might be that which is why conscripts are strong - they are good screening units, forcing the enemy to fight at long range, where the Guard's firepower can lay them low.
That just sounds like good tactics, imo, though. In a vacuum, conscripts don't impress me - my Baneblade (and especially Stormhammer) company has waltzed over quite a few. This tells me that the strength of Conscripts isn't the conscripts themselves but rather the army behind them, and that just strikes me as good tactics.
"Shoot the fighty and chop the shooty" is how you win games, so it's refreshing to see Conscripts, who don't fit that paradigm, exist. They're not really shooty or fighty, just kinda there. Like a wall.
Bump their maximum numbers down to 20-30. They can still swarm, they're still cheap, but it makes their numbers more manageable. If you're having a problem dealing with T3/S5 infantry at that point then you're doing something wrong and need to take a look at your list.
Making them 1p more expensive makes them otherwise pointless next to Infantry Squads for anything less than spamming 50 of, which ironically might exacerbate the problem some.
Arbitrator wrote: Bump their maximum numbers down to 20-30. They can still swarm, they're still cheap, but it makes their numbers more manageable. If you're having a problem dealing with T3/S5 infantry at that point then you're doing something wrong and need to take a look at your list.
Making them 1p more expensive makes them otherwise pointless next to Infantry Squads for anything less than spamming 50 of, which ironically might exacerbate the problem some.
No one cares about the toughness, everyone cares about the fact there isn't an efficient way to remove the sheer number of them. If you don't understand that then you probably don't have a history of play with or against horde armies.
Quickjager wrote: A Baneblade is literally a direct counter, good comparison point; takes an IG unit to beat an IG unit. Used to only say that about Eldar...
Like I said earlier blobs of infantry are easy kills for Stealers. This is also true for Khorne Beserkers I think. They are also very susceptible to Leadership based Psychic powers and similar shenanigans. My armies seem to deal with them without too much issue. Some kill the commissar, some mulch the conscripts. Generally, they are the road block they are supposed to be, but still just a speedbump.
I think Genestealers are going to have their price increased a bit in the future based off what my Tyranid friend said; they don't pay for their claws apparently?
As for the Khorne Flakes I've been looking for a B. report for them to see their general effectiveness. They should be good in practice but I'm wondering how possible it is for them to actually kill too many conscripts to get that 2nd fight phase ironically.
As for LD psy powers, they use the Commissar LDship so that's pointless.
Arbitrator wrote: Bump their maximum numbers down to 20-30. They can still swarm, they're still cheap, but it makes their numbers more manageable. If you're having a problem dealing with T3/S5 infantry at that point then you're doing something wrong and need to take a look at your list.
Making them 1p more expensive makes them otherwise pointless next to Infantry Squads for anything less than spamming 50 of, which ironically might exacerbate the problem some.
No one cares about the toughness, everyone cares about the fact there isn't an efficient way to remove the sheer number of them. If you don't understand that then you probably don't have a history of play with or against horde armies.
If you're having such a problem with hordes then being anti-horde kit. You're a Space Muhreen player right? Not as if you don't have a tool for every situation spoonfed to you anyway. Yeah, hordes may suck to fight against when you're bringing an All-Comerslist but if you know what you're going to be up against... well, plan accordingly.
Quickjager wrote: A Baneblade is literally a direct counter, good comparison point; takes an IG unit to beat an IG unit. Used to only say that about Eldar...
Wait so now there are counters to conscripts?
Gee, I wonder if other armies have access to superheavy tanks... *glances in Index: Forces of the Adeptus Astartes* Oh look! Space Marine baneblades, but with a 2+ save and toughness 9! Oh wow neat!
If only other armies had access to something that countered conscripts. I mean what is Chaos supposed to do?
Let me grab that tank! Oh not available to Grey Knights. Also many of those FW tanks are in and of themselves undercosted. But I suppose that isn't anything new...
As for countering it, it is a counter for the sole reason they can shoot while locked in combat which means, Conscripts can do nothing for all intents and purposes while the baneblade gets full value of its shooting.
Quickjager wrote: I think Genestealers are going to have their price increased a bit in the future based off what my Tyranid friend said; they don't pay for their claws apparently?
As for the Khorne Flakes I've been looking for a B. report for them to see their general effectiveness. They should be good in practice but I'm wondering how possible it is for them to actually kill too many conscripts to get that 2nd fight phase ironically.
As for LD psy powers, they use the Commissar LDship so that's pointless.
Stealers have just had a price decrease by FAQ and if they have to pay 2 points for their claws will not become much less potent. Will have to spend an extra 120 points, well I just got a 480 point decrease in cost, so that's fine.
The Khorne guy I saw charged multiple units at once and spread his attacks. Seemed to work out well for him.
Quickjager wrote: Let me grab that tank! Oh not available to Grey Knights. Also many of those FW tanks are in and of themselves undercosted. But I suppose that isn't anything new...
As for countering it, it is a counter for the sole reason they can shoot while locked in combat which means, Conscripts can do nothing for all intents and purposes while the baneblade gets full value of its shooting.
If only Grey Knights weren't a solo army and had no other faction keywords that could let them bring other units. Then they could bring whatever counters they wanted!
And the FW tanks aren't undercosted, I've had this argument with Xenomancers before and can copy you the quote pyramid if you really want. Compared to the GW superheavies, they're about the same price for price.
And yes? I mean, does it matter why a unit is a counter? If counter units to a given strategy exist, then the strategy is neither flawless nor even that good, and if it is seemingly good, then people aren't using the counters enough.
If you want to continue the FW price argument we can do so elsewhere so we don't end up off topic. I do believe a significant amount of FW costs are off in regards to Space Marines SHV in how cheap they are. I also believe this applies to vehicles as well
As for why I stated the reason it was a counter was because people tend to take a bit and run off with it in other ways intentionally.
As for keywords, I'm sorry if I like playing in codex I thought that was the balance we were striving for in this edition. Something which will be even more important with codices dropping soon which will apparently reward mono-keyword armies. It also fails to address, Orks, DE, Daemons, and most likely other new factions with their own codices like Death Guard.
GhostRecon wrote: Don't think I saw any suggestions/feedback (or really anything to suggest the post was even seen ) as to the two ideas I'd thrown out; feel like, paired, they might balance the 'horde units' a bit better (like Conscripts):
The problem with Conscripts is their synergy with Commissars; with their ability to reduce morale problems to one dead Conscript no matter how horribly you maim the unit itself it becomes harder to attrit them down.
I've mentioned before just giving Conscripts another ability specific to Commissars: Get back in line you rabble!; Instead of restricting casualties due to failed morale checks to one, Commissars and Lord Commissars using the Summary Execution rule halve (rounding up, to a minimum of one) all casualties caused by morale to Conscript units.
The problem with hordes in general may be the lack of scalability of formerly-template weapons - where you could really punish large hordes before, most template weapons will struggle to kill large groups. Could add a rule to horde units like: Tightly packed! Roll a D6 for every wound if this unit has 15 models or more; on a 5+ the unit suffers a mortal wound in addition to normal damage.
Having commissar's be less effective is viable, but it's a question fo whether rules like that are the best way to handle it if other more basic adjustments will do it.
I do think template weapons scaling with size could be a good idea, but at the same time I'm reluctant to do that while other armies (again tyranids and orks) don't feel like they need the extra punishment.
If you mean 'tightly packed!' - I agree, which is why I suggested it for 'horde units'... mostly meaning the horde units that are meant solely for screening, like conscripts, brimstone horrors, Razorwing flocks. Not meant to be a universal rule to every unit that can field a lot of models - definitely not for Ork Boyz and the like.
Was mostly a suggestion I threw out to see if it'd gain any traction - also isn't template specific because it would apply too universally (again, unnecessarily against large units like Orks and Tyranids) and because broad changes to all formerly-template weapons seems entirely unrealistic. If GW really is listening to the community and making balance changes in FAQs, I figure something smaller and effective is more likely than demanding a massive game system change - like changing all formerly-template weapons, bringing back templates, etc. plus, balance changes should be a light touch - and in the IG's/Conscript's case in particular the unit itself isn't the huge problem, it's synergy is. Nerfing their synergy entirely with both Commissars and Orders is too much; upping their points value doesn't actually fix the real problems - their ability to tarpit heavily while ignoring morale and using Orders to fall back out of combat and still shoot; and lowering their armor alone doesn't change too much either - you might be killing a few more now, but morale still isn't a problem and they're still going to tarpit you.
Still, I'm more on the 'interwebs is making mountains out of molehills' side more than not. Like other threads display, I feel a good bit of the complaints/worry-storm is more due to adjustment pains to the new edition.
Quickjager wrote: If you want to continue the FW price argument we can do so elsewhere so we don't end up off topic. I do believe a significant amount of FW costs are off in regards to Space Marines SHV in how cheap they are. I also believe this applies to vehicles as well
As for why I stated the reason it was a counter was because people tend to take a bit and run off with it in other ways intentionally.
As for keywords, I'm sorry if I like playing in codex I thought that was the balance we were striving for in this edition. Something which will be even more important with codices dropping soon which will apparently reward mono-keyword armies. It also fails to address, Orks, DE, Daemons, and most likely other new factions with their own codices like Death Guard.
Feel free to restart that discussion in another threat or PM if you're invested. I'm happy to help you understand the logic (as I see it) behind Forge World's pricing. Not sure what your sentence about countering means.
The keyword thing - I get what you're saying about playing in-codex, but if you stay completely in-codex you have to deal with the army's deliberately engineered weaknesses. For armies like GK, or Deathwatch, their engineered weakness is hordes. Orks have this problem too - their engineered weakness is heavy (T8+) vehicles, and if you read other threads they're really struggling in that department.
Factions having weaknesses is a good thing, imo, because it makes the factions different. The weakness IG has is to melee armies making it to their tanks/heavy weapons/whatever firepower they have, for example (to try to draw it back to conscripts).
Every army has a unit whose job it is is to fill that weakness, e.g. Purifiers for GK anti-horde or Tankbustas for Ork heavy AT. But the faction, on the whole, is still weaker in that one field. Part of the issue with Conscripts, I think, is they're sort of a way around the 'bad at assault' weakeness Guard are supposed to have. Their 'counter-weakness' unit should be Ogryns, but Conscripts fill the niche instead (and very well too!) because of a Perfect Storm of army synergy, BRB rules updates, and (imo) unpreparedness.
So I can see, maybe, an argument that the Conscripts are flooding a niche that is supposed to be one where Guard are weak and just literally and figuratively plugging gaps in the faction's lines. I don't think that makes them overpowered by themselves, though. I think it just means that more counter-horde (i.e. Fellblades, Baneblades, Knights, whatever) is needed in the meta.
Regarding the Khorne berzerkers, one major thing to remember is that you consolidate after inflicting casualties. So you start in base to base contact, can move 3" after inflicting casualties, and only have to get within 1" to be considered still in combat. And then you'll get another 3" pile-in move at the start of the next fight phase.
Because the berzerkers' rule specifically grants them an extra fight phase, this means they also get an extra pile-in move and an extra consolidation move. Both of those are part of the fight phase.
So it's actually kind of hard to get a "free" disengage via casualties, especially if both units are spread out to create a long line of battle. You'd have to clear a rather large area around the entire unit. If just one enemy model is still within 4", it can use its consolidate move to stick to you. Now the entire unit can be activated to fight and get a 3" pile-in move to get the rest of them in (and if one model was within 4" by the end of casualties, the rest are likely well within 7" ).
This also means that Khorne berzerkers in combat can get across the board surprisingly quickly as long as whatever is in front of them keeps dying. They can keep going stuff dies->consolidate->pile-in->stuff dies->consolidate to get about 7" (since I'm expecting the pile-in to be less than 3" if the consolidate move got them back into combat) of movement per turn. Which is pretty fast for a unit that is locked in combat.
I don't understand how knights and baneblades are supposed to be good at antihorde, they are hardly going to kill as many conscripts as the best answers per pt. Trying to charge them into melee with the conscripts is going to result in a 1'' retreat and little else.
The point of conscripts is mainly to block assault and deepstrike armies - in those matchups they excel - but even against armies with mostly long range guns they carry their weight and more. They take objectives, block positions and put out more firepower than most other infantry units can per point. While they won't be bringing down any land raiders they can certainly do more than enough damage against T5 or lower to justify their cost. Best of all is that they can be used to assault shooty units like tanks in order to stunlock them, unless the opponent has his own layer of conscript equivalents. If the opponent decides to try to deal with them then he is likely playing a losing game. It's definitely possible to win by ignoring the conscripts and shooting the softer targets in the backline, but the AM player is probably going to have even more longrange shooting than pretty much any other shooty army. This is what causes the imbalance - in the best matchups the conscripts are incredible and in the worst matchups they are at least good given that they are cheap and relevant. If I had to guess the meta will probably be long range shooting and longer range shooting as a result, possibly flyers as well.
sossen wrote: I don't understand how knights and baneblades are supposed to be good at antihorde, they are hardly going to kill as many conscripts as the best answers per pt. Trying to charge them into melee with the conscripts is going to result in a 1'' retreat and little else.
The point of conscripts is mainly to block assault and deepstrike armies - in those matchups they excel - but even against armies with mostly long range guns they carry their weight and more. They take objectives, block positions and put out more firepower than most other infantry units can per point. While they won't be bringing down any land raiders they can certainly do more than enough damage against T5 or lower to justify their cost. Best of all is that they can be used to assault shooty units like tanks in order to stunlock them, unless the opponent has his own layer of conscript equivalents. If the opponent decides to try to deal with them then he is likely playing a losing game. It's definitely possible to win by ignoring the conscripts and shooting the softer targets in the backline, but the AM player is probably going to have even more longrange shooting than pretty much any other shooty army. This is what causes the imbalance - in the best matchups the conscripts are incredible and in the worst matchups they are at least good given that they are cheap and relevant. If I had to guess the meta will probably be long range shooting and longer range shooting as a result, possibly flyers as well.
My SHTR routinely wins games against conscripts, with only my 4th (Assault) company having lost to conscript spam and it was because I horribly misplayed. (NB: My club has not yet adopted Maelstrom, this may change). The order of operations is this:
1) Use faster movement values to find objectives to park on and fire at non-conscript units to knock out enemy AT assets. 2) Park with the objectives underneath the center of the tank and continue to fire. 3) If the Conscripts assault the baneblade, no problem, it gets free Overwatch against them and the sheer size of its hull keeps them more than 3" from the center of the objective. 4) Baneblade continues to fire at enemy AT assets, ignoring the conscripts completely (except for the free 9 attacks it gets) 5) This state continues until either the enemy's non-conscript assets are eliminated and the Baneblades run out of targets for their primary armament -OR- the game ends with my tanks on 3 of the objectives. (or however many objectives there are)
If, at step 3, the conscripts do not assault the Baneblade, then it is no problem - their firepower is insufficient to meaningfully harm the vehicles.
My 2k list includes:
1x Superheavy Detachment with 3x Superheavy Tanks (1st and 3rd (Line) companies are Baneblades, 2nd and 4th (Assault) companies are Stormswords, and 5th (Breakthrough) company is Stormhammers) 1x Battalion Detachment with: 3x Primaris Psykers (for the sweet sweet Barrier spell that gives Baneblades 2+ armour, and for redundancy. Sometimes these are swapped for Company Commanders or Lord Commissars, depending on how I am feeling, but Smite is way better damage output for my list than Orders or Morale Bonuses) 2x Infantry Squads, 1x Scion Squad
and the rest flavour to taste, though usually tech-priests for the superheavies or transports for the psykers or whathaveyou. Rough riders, even, if I'm feeling fun.
EDIT: As for Knights, they just walk over the line of conscripts, literally. They can move through infantry units, like Fly units can.
sossen wrote: I don't understand how knights and baneblades are supposed to be good at antihorde, they are hardly going to kill as many conscripts as the best answers per pt. Trying to charge them into melee with the conscripts is going to result in a 1'' retreat and little else.
The point of conscripts is mainly to block assault and deepstrike armies - in those matchups they excel - but even against armies with mostly long range guns they carry their weight and more. They take objectives, block positions and put out more firepower than most other infantry units can per point. While they won't be bringing down any land raiders they can certainly do more than enough damage against T5 or lower to justify their cost. Best of all is that they can be used to assault shooty units like tanks in order to stunlock them, unless the opponent has his own layer of conscript equivalents. If the opponent decides to try to deal with them then he is likely playing a losing game. It's definitely possible to win by ignoring the conscripts and shooting the softer targets in the backline, but the AM player is probably going to have even more longrange shooting than pretty much any other shooty army. This is what causes the imbalance - in the best matchups the conscripts are incredible and in the worst matchups they are at least good given that they are cheap and relevant. If I had to guess the meta will probably be long range shooting and longer range shooting as a result, possibly flyers as well.
So a WS5+ BS5+ S3 T3 5+Sv Ld4 model with rapid fire S3 is an uberman? Has nothing to do with the Commissar forcing that Ld4 to mean nothing, or the Commander giving orders to let them Fall back and shoot or double their firepower?
Again and again, it is not Conscripts that are the problem. It is the way they synergize with both Orders and Commissars. Try even theoryhammering Conscripts with just a Commander giving Orders - no Commissar buffing leadership - and see how much of an Uberman they are. Or vice versa, sans Commander but with Commissar. Then mathhammer them without either. You might find Conscripts need both to even function, even just in theory, as this specter uberman - so it is that synergy that needs attention, not the unit itself.
Arbitrator wrote: Bump their maximum numbers down to 20-30. They can still swarm, they're still cheap, but it makes their numbers more manageable. If you're having a problem dealing with T3/S5 infantry at that point then you're doing something wrong and need to take a look at your list.
Making them 1p more expensive makes them otherwise pointless next to Infantry Squads for anything less than spamming 50 of, which ironically might exacerbate the problem some.
No one cares about the toughness, everyone cares about the fact there isn't an efficient way to remove the sheer number of them. If you don't understand that then you probably don't have a history of play with or against horde armies.
If you're having such a problem with hordes then being anti-horde kit. You're a Space Muhreen player right? Not as if you don't have a tool for every situation spoonfed to you anyway. Yeah, hordes may suck to fight against when you're bringing an All-Comerslist but if you know what you're going to be up against... well, plan accordingly.
We did with old horde armies with Flamers and Thunderfire/Whirlwinds, when you guys whined about AP5 because you couldn't grasp the basic concept of cover against Bolters.
sossen wrote: I don't understand how knights and baneblades are supposed to be good at antihorde, they are hardly going to kill as many conscripts as the best answers per pt. Trying to charge them into melee with the conscripts is going to result in a 1'' retreat and little else.
The point of conscripts is mainly to block assault and deepstrike armies - in those matchups they excel - but even against armies with mostly long range guns they carry their weight and more. They take objectives, block positions and put out more firepower than most other infantry units can per point. While they won't be bringing down any land raiders they can certainly do more than enough damage against T5 or lower to justify their cost. Best of all is that they can be used to assault shooty units like tanks in order to stunlock them, unless the opponent has his own layer of conscript equivalents. If the opponent decides to try to deal with them then he is likely playing a losing game. It's definitely possible to win by ignoring the conscripts and shooting the softer targets in the backline, but the AM player is probably going to have even more longrange shooting than pretty much any other shooty army. This is what causes the imbalance - in the best matchups the conscripts are incredible and in the worst matchups they are at least good given that they are cheap and relevant. If I had to guess the meta will probably be long range shooting and longer range shooting as a result, possibly flyers as well.
I think the main thing is just that they don't care about them very much. It's true that all 50 Conscripts using FRFSRF on a superheavy expect to put almost 4 wounds on it, which is pretty good, but you don't need to kill many of them to degrade their order efficiency, and both Baneblades and Knights are pretty happy to charge them if they get close. And you're just not getting more than one Conscript unit in range of one of these to rapid fire at it. The superheavies still don't kill them efficiently but they can take steps to reduce their damage output and can get to the objectives first. It's not like a regular ranged gunline or a CC army where getting too close to Conscripts means you take some damage and you lose a turn.
Arbitrator wrote: Bump their maximum numbers down to 20-30. They can still swarm, they're still cheap, but it makes their numbers more manageable. If you're having a problem dealing with T3/S5 infantry at that point then you're doing something wrong and need to take a look at your list.
Making them 1p more expensive makes them otherwise pointless next to Infantry Squads for anything less than spamming 50 of, which ironically might exacerbate the problem some.
No one cares about the toughness, everyone cares about the fact there isn't an efficient way to remove the sheer number of them. If you don't understand that then you probably don't have a history of play with or against horde armies.
If you're having such a problem with hordes then being anti-horde kit. You're a Space Muhreen player right? Not as if you don't have a tool for every situation spoonfed to you anyway. Yeah, hordes may suck to fight against when you're bringing an All-Comerslist but if you know what you're going to be up against... well, plan accordingly.
We did with old horde armies with Flamers and Thunderfire/Whirlwinds, when you guys whined about AP5 because you couldn't grasp the basic concept of cover against Bolters.
Well how about now?
That's a bit unfair, I don't know anyone who whined about AP5. In fact, most guard players I know lovingly referred to Flak Armour as a 't-shirt' and were wide-eyed with surprise if they were told they could roll an armour save.
Arbitrator wrote: Bump their maximum numbers down to 20-30. They can still swarm, they're still cheap, but it makes their numbers more manageable. If you're having a problem dealing with T3/S5 infantry at that point then you're doing something wrong and need to take a look at your list.
Making them 1p more expensive makes them otherwise pointless next to Infantry Squads for anything less than spamming 50 of, which ironically might exacerbate the problem some.
No one cares about the toughness, everyone cares about the fact there isn't an efficient way to remove the sheer number of them. If you don't understand that then you probably don't have a history of play with or against horde armies.
If you're having such a problem with hordes then being anti-horde kit. You're a Space Muhreen player right? Not as if you don't have a tool for every situation spoonfed to you anyway. Yeah, hordes may suck to fight against when you're bringing an All-Comerslist but if you know what you're going to be up against... well, plan accordingly.
We did with old horde armies with Flamers and Thunderfire/Whirlwinds, when you guys whined about AP5 because you couldn't grasp the basic concept of cover against Bolters.
Well how about now?
That's a bit unfair, I don't know anyone who whined about AP5. In fact, most guard players I know lovingly referred to Flak Armour as a 't-shirt' and were wide-eyed with surprise if they were told they could roll an armour save.
Have you ever browsed this forum? Bolters are a bad weapon, let's face it. Whenever a Marine player has a complaint about that, people here say "You have ATSKNF and Bolters ignore my armor unlike Lasguns!!!", when in reality we'd trade for Lasguns if they made us even a point cheaper.
Have you ever browsed this forum? Bolters are a bad weapon, let's face it. Whenever a Marine player has a complaint about that, people here say "You have ATSKNF and Bolters ignore my armor unlike Lasguns!!!", when in reality we'd trade for Lasguns if they made us even a point cheaper.
You did. You don't get AP5 anymore and SM went from 14 points to 13 points. And we laughed our asses off. You shot the 5 point mini? Pfft, oooookay. Don't mind these tanks.
daedalus wrote: Oh. That makes sense. I'm going to petition for that in N&B.
I think I'm the only one that uses it. I don't know anyone else with 16 IG superheavy tanks.
I mean, I could bring the one that gives you THREE super heavy tanks...
That's all I ever field in one game except for apocalypse, so don't be too sad!
Besides, the smallest regiment structure is 3 companies, so you only need six more vehicles to make a minium-sized superheavy tank regiment, if the regimental commander is alright riding a Chimera, haha!
At 1000 points, how would you handle 6 manticores bubble wrapped by (I forget how many, a lot, at least 60 in 2 squads, closer to 100) conscripts. The manticores are behind & inside a building, and the conscripts stretch out from the commissar, who is positioned in the corner of the building, where he cannot be seen. The conscripts cover the building, extend with layers to both sides of the board, and are also in front of the building as well.
Also, there is a master of ordinance in there too, so the manties reroll 1s.
This is also on the scenario layout where you start in opposite corners, with a 9" dividing circle in the middle.
At 1000 points, how would you handle 6 manticores bubble wrapped by (I forget how many, a lot, at least 60 in 2 squads, closer to 100) conscripts. The manticores are behind & inside a building, and the conscripts stretch out from the commissar, who is positioned in the corner of the building, where he cannot be seen. The conscripts cover the building, extend with layers to both sides of the board, and are also in front of the building as well.
Also, there is a master of ordinance in there too, so the manties reroll 1s.
This is also on the scenario layout where you start in opposite corners, with a 9" dividing circle in the middle.
Thank you in advance!
manticores are 2d6str 10 AP -2 d3 damage, right? Or d6 damage?
At 1000 points, how would you handle 6 manticores bubble wrapped by (I forget how many, a lot, at least 60 in 2 squads, closer to 100) conscripts. The manticores are behind & inside a building, and the conscripts stretch out from the commissar, who is positioned in the corner of the building, where he cannot be seen. The conscripts cover the building, extend with layers to both sides of the board, and are also in front of the building as well.
Also, there is a master of ordinance in there too, so the manties reroll 1s.
This is also on the scenario layout where you start in opposite corners, with a 9" dividing circle in the middle.
Thank you in advance!
Closer to a million! Ignoring FOC/Detachments, you actually only can field 57 Conscripts with 1 Commissar and 6 Manticores within 1000pts. Not closer to a hundred, or a hundred billion, or whatever other number.
Master of Ordnance brings that down to 44 Conscripts.
At 1000 points, how would you handle 6 manticores bubble wrapped by (I forget how many, a lot, at least 60 in 2 squads, closer to 100) conscripts. The manticores are behind & inside a building, and the conscripts stretch out from the commissar, who is positioned in the corner of the building, where he cannot be seen. The conscripts cover the building, extend with layers to both sides of the board, and are also in front of the building as well.
Also, there is a master of ordinance in there too, so the manties reroll 1s.
This is also on the scenario layout where you start in opposite corners, with a 9" dividing circle in the middle.
Thank you in advance!
Closer to a million! Ignoring FOC/Detachments, you actually only can field 57 Conscripts with 1 Commissar and 6 Manticores within 1000pts. Not closer to a hundred, or a hundred billion, or whatever other number.
Master of Ordnance brings that down to 44 Conscripts.
Having a legal HQ for such a detachment brings it down to 34 conscripts, which I think is below the minimum unit size for one of the units (20, right?) meaning you have to field 1 squad of infantry (The cheapest other option) as your second troop which brings it down to 21 conscripts with 10 infantrymen, one Commissar, one Company Commander, 6 Manticores, and one MoO
EDIT: If you bring a Lord Commissar instead of a Company Commander+Commissar you get I think, 1 or 2 conscripts back?
At 1000 points, how would you handle 6 manticores bubble wrapped by (I forget how many, a lot, at least 60 in!
Manticores are 133 by default. If there are 6 on the table, there couldn't be more than 67 conscripts on the table, and that's not counting any other units. No HQ. No commissar. Literally nothing else at that point value. You can't take a commissar with the 21 points leaving off 7 conscripts would get you, so I'd open by handing my phone to my opponent, with the calculator app open, and politely ask him to try again while I go look for a nearby place to get a drink.
Oh, I'd also say something offhanded about how I can do a million pushups in a minute when no one is watching.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ok. I got it a little wrong.
It was 2 squads of 30 conscripts. 4x Manticore 2x Wyvern 1x Commissar 1x MoO
And we can't remember the HQ for this particular game. it was inquisition i think but can't recall. This might not be 100% accurate but it is the best we can recall.
I play Grey Knights mainly. So, a GK strategy would be ideal here. Thanks!
ross-128 wrote: If you can't get through 34 conscripts with a 1000 point army, I don't know what to tell you.
Okay so that's one "get good" reply, which basically amounts to you don't have an answer so you're being snide, anyone want to hazard a strategy?
In any case, the answer to this particular scenario is to bring storm ravens. I didn't have them in my list at the time. If i could go against this army again, my list would be: 2xRaven, 1x Draigo, 1x Strike squad; Patrol detachment. But can you find an answer without storm raven cheese?
I forgot to mention the requirement in this mini-tournament was 1 detachment only. Missions are ITC.
Have you ever browsed this forum? Bolters are a bad weapon, let's face it. Whenever a Marine player has a complaint about that, people here say "You have ATSKNF and Bolters ignore my armor unlike Lasguns!!!", when in reality we'd trade for Lasguns if they made us even a point cheaper.
You did. You don't get AP5 anymore and SM went from 14 points to 13 points. And we laughed our asses off. You shot the 5 point mini? Pfft, oooookay. Don't mind these tanks.
But it's the same as its ever been.
Including the Flamers, Heavy Bolters, Whirlwind rounds, etc?
Marmatag wrote: Hold on, let me ask my buddy what his list was.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ok. I got it a little wrong.
It was 2 squads of 30 conscripts.
4x Manticore
2x Wyvern
1x Commissar
1x MoO
And we can't remember the HQ for this particular game. it was inquisition i think but can't recall. This might not be 100% accurate but it is the best we can recall.
I play Grey Knights mainly. So, a GK strategy would be ideal here. Thanks!
Regarding this matchup, is it really the 60 Conscripts that are the problem and not the 4 Manticores?
Marmatag wrote: Hold on, let me ask my buddy what his list was.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ok. I got it a little wrong.
It was 2 squads of 30 conscripts.
4x Manticore
2x Wyvern
1x Commissar
1x MoO
And we can't remember the HQ for this particular game. it was inquisition i think but can't recall. This might not be 100% accurate but it is the best we can recall.
I play Grey Knights mainly. So, a GK strategy would be ideal here. Thanks!
Regarding this matchup, is it really the 60 Conscripts that are the problem and not the 4 Manticores?
The manticores are the problem, compounded by the fact that I could not get in range to actually attack them, because of conscript wall.
So i needed to make a dent in the conscripts before i could attack them. And since he went first, i had to suffer 3 rounds of shooting from those manticores before i could make it through the conscripts.
At 1000 points, how would you handle 6 manticores bubble wrapped by (I forget how many, a lot, at least 60 in 2 squads, closer to 100) conscripts. The manticores are behind & inside a building, and the conscripts stretch out from the commissar, who is positioned in the corner of the building, where he cannot be seen. The conscripts cover the building, extend with layers to both sides of the board, and are also in front of the building as well.
Also, there is a master of ordinance in there too, so the manties reroll 1s.
This is also on the scenario layout where you start in opposite corners, with a 9" dividing circle in the middle.
Thank you in advance!
I think this is closer to 1200 points for a plausible list.
Obviously this is a pretty cheesy spam list that's likely to do very well against many TAC lists, but I do think it's generally counter-able. The first thing that comes to mind is a ton of Guardians in Wave Serpents. You could fit something like an Autarch and 5 of these in a list. 6 Manticores only expect to just barely kill a Serpent, re-rolling 1s, and don't quite get there if the Serpents are within 36". The Serpents can kill ~20 Conscripts from 24", and on turn 2 the Guardians will be able to get out and shoot. Each Guardian squad expects to kill 7-8 Conscripts if they're in range of the Autarch. So the Conscripts should be basically dead by the end of Eldar turn 2. It is possible that some Wave Serpents will be able to charge Manticores this turn. If all of the Manticores shoot, they can then kill about 25 Guardians. But after this the Manticores are definitely going to be locked in CC with Serpents. The Eldar are likely to table the Guard if they have enough Guardians left, but regardless the Guard player will have no ability to score objectives outside of ones his Manticores are already parked on.
Edit: I think basically the same applies to the modified 1000 point list. There are plenty of things that blow Conscripts away, if inefficiently, and then the artillery is extremely vulnerable to getting locked up. Wave Serpents are particularly good for this because Manticores only expect 1.33 damage on them per wound rather than 2. I bet Sisters would also be able to handle this, with lots of storm bolter Troops squads (~50 points) in Repressors (~100 points).
Marmatag wrote: Hold on, let me ask my buddy what his list was.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ok. I got it a little wrong.
It was 2 squads of 30 conscripts. 4x Manticore 2x Wyvern 1x Commissar 1x MoO
And we can't remember the HQ for this particular game. it was inquisition i think but can't recall. This might not be 100% accurate but it is the best we can recall.
I play Grey Knights mainly. So, a GK strategy would be ideal here. Thanks!
The GK's engineered faction weakness is to hordes, so good luck, but it's worth noting that I could just field two Stormhammers and park them on objectives. The Manticores statistically won't do enough wounds to kill both of them before they run out of missiles, and the stormhammers evaporate everything that can be seen (i.e. the conscripts) in two turns, with a statistical average of killing 24 per turn. Then I just sit on the objectives (if there are any) and lose wounds until victory! Unless he moves out of cover and gets blatted in the face.
Note, the 24 conscripts per turn is with mostly lascannons on the stormhammers. If I gave them Heavy Bolters instead of lascannons, they get cheaper and their numbers go up in this instance.
Marmatag wrote: Would you really bring that to a tournament as your 1000 point list? You'd get annihilated
I play a Superheavy Tank Regiment, that means I try to bring as close to a company (3 vehicles) as possible, and if I can achieve that (e.g. 1500 or 2k) then I can start optimizing.
Sorry if my army loyalty bothers you.
EDIT: It's worth noting that our local tournaments have been at 2k and I've done well (though by no means have won!). I'd hardly say I got annihilated. My list for 2k is typically:
3 vehicles in one Superheavy Detachment
1 Battalion with at least 1 Primaris Psyker, 2 infantry squads, and 1 5-man Scion squad, with the rest of the points to flavour to taste. (Sometimes tech-priests or the like. Usually not much.)
edit - and i'm aware of GK's weaknesses, but that's the way it is.
next tournament i could bring a bunch of rifleman dreadnoughts and azrael, for instance. I'll have a 48" range and a ton of shots, rerolling misses, and my dreads will have a 4++.
Marmatag wrote: Would you really bring that to a tournament as your 1000 point list? You'd get annihilated
I play a Superheavy Tank Regiment, that means I try to bring as close to a company (3 vehicles) as possible, and if I can achieve that (e.g. 1500 or 2k) then I can start optimizing.
Sorry if my army loyalty bothers you.
Well the whole point was asking for advice, it's not really useful advice if i can't put it into practice.
"I need to get better at basketball." "Be taller." "Well, i'm not taller." "I'm not going to apologize for being tall."
So your feedback so far has been:
1. get good
2. switch armies
Marmatag wrote: edit - and i'm aware of GK's weaknesses, but that's the way it is.
next tournament i could bring a bunch of rifleman dreadnoughts and azrael, for instance. I'll have a 48" range and a ton of shots, rerolling misses, and my dreads will have a 4++.
Marmatag wrote: Would you really bring that to a tournament as your 1000 point list? You'd get annihilated
I play a Superheavy Tank Regiment, that means I try to bring as close to a company (3 vehicles) as possible, and if I can achieve that (e.g. 1500 or 2k) then I can start optimizing.
Sorry if my army loyalty bothers you.
Well the whole point was asking for advice, it's not really useful advice if i can't put it into practice.
"I need to get better at basketball." "Be taller." "Well, i'm not taller." "I'm not going to apologize for being tall."
So your feedback so far has been: 1. get good 2. switch armies
got it.
I mean you're asking for advice on how to deal with hordes as GK. That really is like asking how to make a T-34 effective against an M1 Abrams. It's your engineered weakness in your faction, so yes, you will have to switch armies or be a way better player than your opponent. 'tis the truth.
The manticores are the problem, compounded by the fact that I could not get in range to actually attack them, because of conscript wall.
Fair enough. My point was that this seems less like a demonstration of Conscripts being OP and more a demonstration of Manticores being OP (at least when spammed in low-point games).
Anyway, I don't play GKs so I can't really give you any specific advice. These are my general thoughts regarding that list:
- Assuming the Manticores shoot every turn, then they're little metal boxes after turn 4. I appreciate that surviving 4 turns of 4 Manticores shooting is no easy feat, but it's still worth mentioning. If you do have units that can survive Manticore shooting, you could instead concentrate on taking out the Wyverns (leaving him with basically no meaningful shooting after turn 4).
- His army is all but immobile. If you play Maelstrom then he's pretty screwed. If not, I'd suggest using cover as much as possible and having squads on as many objectives as possible (he lacks the push to reach outside of his deployment zone, so unless he can completely obliterate you with artillery fire he won't be contesting your backfield objectives).
- In terms of assault, my suggestion would be to try and shoot some gaps in the conscript line and then assault through them into a couple of the tanks. If you have any jump-pack infantry then you might be able to assault right over the conscripts. Also, bear in mind that (as per the faq) assaulting doesn't require LoS. So if you have enough range to tag the Commissar and/or MoO with an assault unit, you can do so even if they're hiding out of sight behind the tanks. Anyway, the key here is that, even if you can't kill the vehicles you assaulted, you can still lock them down for a turn. And if they're tightly-packed (which seems pretty likely), then they might not even be able to fall back in his turn.
I don't know how applicable these are to GKs, but hopefully they'll be of some help.
Thanks vipoid. That's basically what i tried to do.
My list wasn't ultra-competitive.
I basically had:
Voldus
A Purgation squad in a razorback
Interceptors
Paladins
Vindicare Assassin
The vindicare couldn't see the commissar, ever, because of his placement inside the building. It was 90 points effectively wasted in my list. (Hence my statement: Snipers do not counter commissars.) He could shoot conscripts basically, or try to peel damage off tanks.
Turn 1, I lost the razorback, and the squad inside, and some interceptors to shots from wyverns and manticores, this is before i got a turn. On my turn 1, I moved the interceptors into rapid-fire range of the weakest, not-in-cover conscript squad, while also deploying them into cover. So they had a 2+ base and could rapid fire into the conscripts. But they were not at full strength, so they weren't killing a lot of conscripts.
I had Voldus and the paladins drop in, so they could move forward and charge through the walls into the commissar. It was going to take me 2 charge moves to get within range of the tanks anyway, and because of how tight things were back there in his parking lot, I would be able to kill the Wyverns as well.
But his turn 2, he shot pretty much everything off the table except a couple Paladins, Voldus, and a few remaining interceptors.
At this point the game was basically over. My interceptors got in and locked up some vehicles, but Voldus and co failed a charge.
Well alright, let's say I'm playing Orks. I bring a couple warbuggies, a warboss, and a bunch o' boyz, enough that I can afford to take some losses. Their nobz will probably have big choppas or power klaws to help them deal with vehicles. Or looking at it another way, the Boyz are padding to help the nobs reach the artillery.
Deploy as far forward as possible. Warbuggies move into a comfortable charge range, shoot, and charge the conscripts. With 14" of movement, they should be able to pull it off even if they're deployed back a bit (unless they're reeeeeeally crammed into the far corner, in which case you should have raised some questions when the terrain was being set up).
With the conscripts tied up, the warboss and Boyz move up, advance if necessary, charge if they can (with the warboss they can charge after advancing), shoot and repeat next turn if they can't. Warboss of course will make sure he's sitting somewhere in the middle of the blob so he can't be targeted. Because everyone is within 36", the MoO is useless.
When the Boyz hit the conscripts, they should more or less evaporate in one turn because they just got hit with nearly 1000 points of Boyz, minus the boss and distraction buggies. What's left of the blob, which will include the Nobz because I'll never pick them as casualties, charges the manticores. Because if they're "inside a building", that building is area-terrain ruins. Which means the Boyz can move through it with no penalty. In addition, because of the rule limiting how many missiles a Manticore can fire in one turn, they can't use their missiles for overwatch if they fired that turn.
Because Manticores only have 2d6 shots hitting on 4+, they're going to have a hard time putting enough shots down to clear the blob even if every hit is guaranteed to splat a model. If they actually do enough damage to a single blob to force a morale check, the Warboss can just blam someone. They can probably easily splat the buggies, but the buggies are a distraction unit. And really only the Nobz and Warboss actually need to get through, once they've entered melee the artillery has lost because it can't fall back and shoot.
And that's just a really basic/shallow strategy that relies on a very simple plan of "give them a turn-1 scare to distract them, then drown them in bodies", because I'm not an Ork player.
Marmatag wrote: Hold on, let me ask my buddy what his list was.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ok. I got it a little wrong.
It was 2 squads of 30 conscripts.
4x Manticore
2x Wyvern
1x Commissar
1x MoO
And we can't remember the HQ for this particular game. it was inquisition i think but can't recall. This might not be 100% accurate but it is the best we can recall.
I play Grey Knights mainly. So, a GK strategy would be ideal here. Thanks!
Prob a company commander for HQ. Hardly a GK player, but theoried up:
Fewer drops so you should get first turn; two smaller squads and Crowe hide in cover until they can Gate into his face. Other two squads deepstrike in his face. Focus SBs and Incinerators on the Conscripts enough to assault the Manticores (1st priority) and the Wyverns (2nd). Each Manticore averages ~2 dead MEQ per rocket (assuming 7.5 average on 2d6) and the MoO only works if you're further than 36", so - in theory would do okay.
Playing Tau I'd use two Stealth Teams, one with homing beacon, a flamer crisis team and two FB commanders and homing beacon into his army's face.
Arbitrator wrote: Bump their maximum numbers down to 20-30. They can still swarm, they're still cheap, but it makes their numbers more manageable. If you're having a problem dealing with T3/S5 infantry at that point then you're doing something wrong and need to take a look at your list.
Making them 1p more expensive makes them otherwise pointless next to Infantry Squads for anything less than spamming 50 of, which ironically might exacerbate the problem some.
No one cares about the toughness, everyone cares about the fact there isn't an efficient way to remove the sheer number of them. If you don't understand that then you probably don't have a history of play with or against horde armies.
If you're having such a problem with hordes then being anti-horde kit. You're a Space Muhreen player right? Not as if you don't have a tool for every situation spoonfed to you anyway. Yeah, hordes may suck to fight against when you're bringing an All-Comerslist but if you know what you're going to be up against... well, plan accordingly.
We did with old horde armies with Flamers and Thunderfire/Whirlwinds, when you guys whined about AP5 because you couldn't grasp the basic concept of cover against Bolters.
Well how about now?
Did we? I remember always having an ADL in every list and getting complaints from Space Marine players that their supposedly superior armor didn't matter because I just camped cover for a 4+ with everything while retaliating with tanks, that were also in cover. and getting a 3+ because of Camo Nets.
Marmatag wrote:Let's take this in a different direction.
At 1000 points, how would you handle 6 manticores bubble wrapped by (I forget how many, a lot, at least 60 in 2 squads, closer to 100) conscripts. The manticores are behind & inside a building, and the conscripts stretch out from the commissar, who is positioned in the corner of the building, where he cannot be seen. The conscripts cover the building, extend with layers to both sides of the board, and are also in front of the building as well.
Also, there is a master of ordinance in there too, so the manties reroll 1s.
This is also on the scenario layout where you start in opposite corners, with a 9" dividing circle in the middle.
I have fewer drops [4], so I go first.
I scout forward, then deploy storm bolters directly in front of the Conscripts. The melta team will fire from within the Repressor. I Act of Faith Celestine and the Seraphim forward. I shoot the Conscripts with all the flamers and storm bolters and bolt pistols:
3x Heavy Flamers for an average of 7 dead conscripts. 94 Bolter shots [14 Storm Bolters, 38 Bolt Pistols] average 28 dead conscripts. 14 Meltaguns kills 10.
If I got to chose deployment type, we're playing Dawn of War, and the Manticores are in range of Celestine and the Seraphim to charge, even over that gigantic building. It's even worse for the guard, because they're all together behind that giant building so I can multicharge all of them. And, because they're behind the building, they can't overwatch with their secondary weapons. Might as well try their Storm Eagle rockets. 10d6 rocket shots, averaging 35, hitting 6, wounding 5, I save 3, lose 2 Gemini, then the Seraphim charge in with no overwatch. The Repressors charge the conscripts, taking 0 damage and getting in melee with them, killing an average of 6 between them. Hypothetically, Celestine and company could include the Company Commander in their charge if he too has made the mistake of being close to the Manticores, which would be game right then and there for the IG, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume otherwise.
On the IG turn, the conscripts can try to beat on the Repressors with their fists, but they're going to go nowhere fast. His Manticores can stay in combat and be shot by Inferno Pistols twice and meleed by Celestine twice, or they can fall back, be shot twice, meleed once, and get a shot at overwatch, so they're going to do that. So everyone falls back, and try to shoot my Storm Bolters. 80 shots kills 4. Oh well, that's the IG turn.
In my next turn, I Act of Faith to use my Inferno Pistols on Manticores, and add back a model to the Storm Bolter squad. Again, I shoot the Conscripts, killing 24 on average. I get to kill another 7 with Meltaguns, and shoot the Manticores with Inferno Pistols again. Over the course of this turn, a minimum of two Manticores should die, possibly 3 if Celestine did well in last turn's close combat. I charge, again with Celestine, then with the Seraphim, make it, and probably blow another one up in melee. I melee the Conscripts with the Repressors again, killing another 6.
The IG player has nothing to do but fall back again, and kills of the two girls left from the storm bolter team from turn 1. End of his turn.
Sisters 3, I finish off his Conscripts, and probably his Manticores.
Now, let's give the IG more benefits than you offered them. It's Hammer and Anvil now, and there are 5 perfect Manticore-sized buildings right along the back edge, each a foot apart. The Conscripts protect them way at the back there. I can't reach the Manticores on turn 1 anymore, but everyone unloads into the Conscripts. The Manticores, if they know what's good for them, bombard the Repressors, wounding one and probably killing the other. It takes an average of 25 Manticore shots to kill a Repressor. They could try to blow Celestine up, or the Seraphim, but they have a better chance shooting at the Repressors. This turn, I once again unload into the conscripts, and charge 2 Manticores, the CC, and the Commissar with Seraphim and one more with Celestine. From there on out, it's just mop-up. If they bomb the Seraphim, then I lose those, but the Repressors are fine, and they bring 10 meltaguns right up to within 6" of the Manticores and get to murder a whole lot more conscripts, and that's that right then and there.
You can pull off the same stunt with Harlequins in Shadowweavers. In fact, I saw it happen just last night, except the IG player was using Leman Russes and Autocannon teams instead of Manticores. It wasn't wiping the floor, but the IG was on the back foot for most of the game.
Or, you can go with many, many Hormagaunts/Genestealers, Trygons, and the Swarmlord. That will mincemeat them, I have proof, because it took princely 1 turn for a Tyranids player to kill 40 of my Conscripts with 1 trygon and 1 squad of hormagaunts, and I had stolen the initiative and killed the Swarmlord before he got to use his Hive Commander ability. If there was 1 Trygon Prime, 60 Hormagaunts, 3 Tyrant Guard, and a Swarmlord, I think the Conscripts and Manticores could also be fairly easily handled.
Katherine, in ITC you don't automatically go first if you have less drops. Counting a seize roll, it's roughly 60-40 if you finish first. Additionally you don't pick the deployment type or terrain, it's defined at the outsight on the mission printout.
And the deployment - I believe it's called the scouring - where you have access to opposite corners, with a 9" no-man's land in the middle.
I had less drops and went second. Also, I don't play sisters of battle. I didn't know they could do a 25+ inch move on turn 1 to get into flamer range, that's impressive. Your alpha strike is better than mine, that's for sure.
Marmatag wrote: Katherine, in ITC you don't automatically go first if you have less drops. Counting a seize roll, it's roughly 60-40 if you finish first. Additionally you don't pick the deployment type or terrain, it's defined at the outsight on the mission printout.
And the deployment - I believe it's called the scouring - where you have access to opposite corners, with a 9" no-man's land in the middle.
I had less drops and went second. Also, I don't play sisters of battle. I didn't know they could do a 25+ inch move on turn 1 to get into flamer range, that's impressive. Your alpha strike is better than mine, that's for sure.
Going first would have helped dramatically.
You didn't specify it was ITC. And, well, I don't play ITC outside of well, tournaments.
And I really, really like the way deployment works this edition anyway. It's pretty fair, I think, and adds more thought to list building. I have to balance the want for massive firepower with toughness, because an army with massive firepower won't be going first. I used to run Basilisks, Manticores, Wyverns, Mynondoras Odon, and Coteaz in an effort to remove about half the enemy army before they took their first turn and ensure I went first, which, outside of the cheesiest of cheese, worked extremely well, but that's not possible anymore.
And, I also offered solutions for the Tyranids and the Harlequins.
vipoid wrote: I have a question for those of you who have had frustrating games against conscripts: what did they actually do?
I ask because I keep hearing that they are used as bubble-wrap for artillery/tanks and that they were a pain to kill.
But, given that intervening models don't provide cover in this edition (and there's no way conscripts can completely block LoS to a tank), could you not have just shot the artillery and largely ignored the conscripts? I would assume that the bulk of the enemy fire was from the tanks/artillery and not the conscripts (otherwise, why bother even using the former?), so by taking those out first you leave the enemy with a unit that is quite tough but severely lacking in firepower.
Stop repeating the "lacking in firepower" thing. They have more firepower than most basic infantry. If run in tight squads with a commander, they easily have more firepower than my vanguard, a squad designed to shoot tons of str 3. They are not lacking offensively. Stop repeating this.
Next, objectives are a thing. Kill points are a thing. A big chunk of your army refusing to die makes both of those much easier to manage.
Arbitrator wrote: If you're having such a problem with hordes then being anti-horde kit. You're a Space Muhreen player right? Not as if you don't have a tool for every situation spoonfed to you anyway. Yeah, hordes may suck to fight against when you're bringing an All-Comerslist but if you know what you're going to be up against... well, plan accordingly.
No one has tools to deal with conscripts efficiently. Termagaunts, ork boys, brimstone horrors? We have tools for those. Because they are coated correctly. Nothing is point efficient compared to conscripts.
Space Marines also now have the option of just playing Raven Guard, now everything the IG can throw at them just hits on 5 and Conscripts hit on 6. Anything gets within 12" to negate their chapter tactic? Assault it so it can't shoot anyway.
ross-128 wrote: Space Marines also now have the option of just playing Raven Guard, now everything the IG can throw at them just hits on 5 and Conscripts hit on 6. Anything gets within 12" to negate their chapter tactic? Assault it so it can't shoot anyway.
I'm waiting to see what, if any, cost there is for that. Being able to cut conscripts firepower in half would almost make them balanced though.
As it stands, I'm mostly enjoying the knowledge at least one of my armies (CSM/DG) gets a codex soon, and my local group has already decided we plan to use them as soon as they come out.
Marmatag wrote: Katherine, in ITC you don't automatically go first if you have less drops. Counting a seize roll, it's roughly 60-40 if you finish first. Additionally you don't pick the deployment type or terrain, it's defined at the outsight on the mission printout.
And the deployment - I believe it's called the scouring - where you have access to opposite corners, with a 9" no-man's land in the middle.
I had less drops and went second. Also, I don't play sisters of battle. I didn't know they could do a 25+ inch move on turn 1 to get into flamer range, that's impressive. Your alpha strike is better than mine, that's for sure.
Going first would have helped dramatically.
You didn't specify it was ITC. And, well, I don't play ITC outside of well, tournaments.
And I really, really like the way deployment works this edition anyway. It's pretty fair, I think, and adds more thought to list building. I have to balance the want for massive firepower with toughness, because an army with massive firepower won't be going first. I used to run Basilisks, Manticores, Wyverns, Mynondoras Odon, and Coteaz in an effort to remove about half the enemy army before they took their first turn and ensure I went first, which, outside of the cheesiest of cheese, worked extremely well, but that's not possible anymore.
And, I also offered solutions for the Tyranids and the Harlequins.
It was a tournament, but i can't imagine anyone playing any ruleset other than ITC at this point. Being able to always go first seems unfair, especially when half of the enemy army must be on the table.
I did mention it was ITC, but after the original post asking for feedback. I also didn't mention that there were buildings between the zones, so you can't move in a straight line to get to the guard.
Marmatag wrote: Katherine, in ITC you don't automatically go first if you have less drops. Counting a seize roll, it's roughly 60-40 if you finish first. Additionally you don't pick the deployment type or terrain, it's defined at the outsight on the mission printout.
And the deployment - I believe it's called the scouring - where you have access to opposite corners, with a 9" no-man's land in the middle.
I had less drops and went second. Also, I don't play sisters of battle. I didn't know they could do a 25+ inch move on turn 1 to get into flamer range, that's impressive. Your alpha strike is better than mine, that's for sure.
Going first would have helped dramatically.
You're Grey Knights, right?
How about try:
2x Grand Masters, one with Infinity Gate and one with Hammerhand, both with Psilencers
4x Strike Squad with Psilencer
1x Interceptors with Psilencer
1x Interceptors w/o Psilencer
Purge Soul across the the board.
Start with Infinity gate, a strike squad, and the Interceptors on the board. Hide in a house or something. Turn 1, move everything up to 9" from the conscripts using Infinity Gate, deep strike, and the Interceptor's ability, purge soul the Commissar, then dump bullets into them. It's crappy that you don't get Bolt Pistols, too, but you do get 138 S4 AP0 shots, as well as 8 more mortal wounds. Assuming you rolled not-crap for Purge Soul, you just wiped out the Conscripts. Otherwise, with clever target selection, you can probably still get off a charge. Be aware, because you might want to drop in cover if you don't think you can keep a 9" charge after your shooting phase. Take the Manticore salvo, lose maybe 10 guys, then close in and melee them to death with Force Falchions.
The only problem is that it may not work as well as Dominions or Hormagaunts because the IG player actually has the ability to play against it, with a wider conscript perimeter and protecting the Commissar by placing him at the end of a conga-line of conscripts behind the Manticores, at which point you do have to slog your way through. In this case, I might keep the interceptors at the max range they can be, then wait for the opening once the conscripts thin out and use their ability then to push in and keep up the pressure.
It was a tournament, but i can't imagine anyone playing any ruleset other than ITC at this point. Being able to always go first seems unfair, especially when half of the enemy army must be on the table.
I did mention it was ITC, but after the original post asking for feedback. I also didn't mention that there were buildings between the zones, so you can't move in a straight line to get to the guard.
I plan to avoid ITC rules, unless I'm playing tournaments.
The regular deployment scheme actually is designed to balance armies that are trying to go for a maximum-power alpha-strike. It does a fairly good job of it too, until two armies with the same idea come up upon one another.
One major balancing factor of Guard alpha-strike lists is the fact that they almost always have to go second, which gives the enemy a turn to react to it. Armies like the Sisters and Grey Knights, who are also armies that can do a powerful alpha-strike, but not as powerful as the rain of fire the Guard brings, get fewer drops than the Guard and get to do their before the Guard does.
Armies that have less firepower and more toughness get to go first more often than those like guard who have lots of killy, fragile units.
SilverAlien wrote: If run in tight squads with a commander, they easily have more firepower than my vanguard, a squad designed to shoot tons of str 3.
What are you basing that on? I've yet to see you provide any math on this.
SilverAlien wrote: They are not lacking offensively. Stop repeating this.
Again, make me.
SilverAlien wrote: Next, objectives are a thing. Kill points are a thing. A big chunk of your army refusing to die makes both of those much easier to manage.
If conscripts are a "big chunk of your army" then what's the problem again?
vipoid wrote: I have a question for those of you who have had frustrating games against conscripts: what did they actually do?
I ask because I keep hearing that they are used as bubble-wrap for artillery/tanks and that they were a pain to kill.
But, given that intervening models don't provide cover in this edition (and there's no way conscripts can completely block LoS to a tank), could you not have just shot the artillery and largely ignored the conscripts? I would assume that the bulk of the enemy fire was from the tanks/artillery and not the conscripts (otherwise, why bother even using the former?), so by taking those out first you leave the enemy with a unit that is quite tough but severely lacking in firepower.
Why do you bring real actual games into this? This is all about mathhammer and theory crafting which clearly shows that conscripts and commissars are ridiculously overpowered and unbalanced.
If we don't see that reflected in actual play, that's because people are playing the game wrong.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Quickjager wrote: Let me grab that tank! Oh not available to Grey Knights. Also many of those FW tanks are in and of themselves undercosted. But I suppose that isn't anything new...
As for countering it, it is a counter for the sole reason they can shoot while locked in combat which means, Conscripts can do nothing for all intents and purposes while the baneblade gets full value of its shooting.
Right... so armies should be balanced around what choices are available to Grey Knights?
vipoid wrote: Citation needed. What are you basing that on? I've yet to see you provide any math on this.
A vanguard gets 3 str 3 shots at 18 inches for 10 points. For the same cost, you get 3 conscripts, having 3 shots at 12-24 and 6 at 0-12, with BS 5+ (so half as many hit).
So at 18-24 conscripts have the advantage cause anything beats 0. At 12-18 vanguard is putting out twice as much damage due to higher BS. At 0-12, they are the same, vanguard has twice as many shots with half the BS.
That's *WITHOUT* a commander doubling up to 100 conscripts firepower for 30 points.
Vanguard offer more firepower than most infantry units. 3 str 3 shots is better than 1-2 str 4 shots from a tactical or SoB, for roughly equivalent prices.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Aesthete wrote: Why do you bring real actual games into this? This is all about mathhammer and theory crafting which clearly shows that conscripts and commissars are ridiculously overpowered and unbalanced.
If we don't see that reflected in actual play, that's because people are playing the game wrong.
Honestly, some people here have basically said they don't believe conscripts firepower could ever be useful, and have thus never bothered with FRFSRF or even concentrating them to try and shoot down an enemy unit as needed. So yes, some people have totally and fully admitted they've never even tried to use conscripts for anything but screening. Every time I mention how they are good at holding objectives I get crickets, as if people never realized cheap models = easier time controlling objectives, or have never bothered to concentrate conscripts around one for that purpose either.
So yes, every time someone insists all conscripts are good for is screening, that tells me they've never even tried to use them for anything else. Because I've played people who have done so, and seen conscripts can do a lot more than that.
vipoid wrote: I have a question for those of you who have had frustrating games against conscripts: what did they actually do?
I ask because I keep hearing that they are used as bubble-wrap for artillery/tanks and that they were a pain to kill.
But, given that intervening models don't provide cover in this edition (and there's no way conscripts can completely block LoS to a tank), could you not have just shot the artillery and largely ignored the conscripts? I would assume that the bulk of the enemy fire was from the tanks/artillery and not the conscripts (otherwise, why bother even using the former?), so by taking those out first you leave the enemy with a unit that is quite tough but severely lacking in firepower.
Why do you bring real actual games into this? This is all about mathhammer and theory crafting which clearly shows that conscripts and commissars are ridiculously overpowered and unbalanced.
If we don't see that reflected in actual play, that's because people are playing the game wrong.
That's because mathhammer clearly shows how easy it is to get 50 Conscripts with an attendant Commissar and Commander into rapid fire range to use FRFSRF on 180pts of models in a vacuum on planet beachball with your opponent happily complying and not doing anything, of course.
Or, in the case of artillery hiding behind a conscript shield - because mathhammer clearly shows your opponent is only going to focus on your Conscripts, in particular charging them so they can fall back and fire using GBITF every turn while everything else shoots too or focusing all their fire on the real threat: Conscripts! Not the four Manticores/whatever flavor of IG artillery you want. They're the obvious meat shields in these scenarios; Conscripts are the uberman superthreat.
Horde armies are a thing now. If you can't beat 150 Conscripts, what are you going to do against green tide Orks? Orks are near the bottom tier, right? But could you beat 180 Ork Boyz that have FNP/5++? I mean, I guess so, since they're not Conscripts.
GhostRecon wrote: Horde armies are a thing now. If you can't beat 150 Conscripts, what are you going to do against green tide Orks? Orks are near the bottom tier, right? But could you beat 180 Ork Boyz that have FNP/5++? I mean, I guess so, since they're not Conscripts.
Yeah, because every ork I kill is worth two conscripts. Orks have half as many models on the field in the first place, and those buffs you mentioned cost far more and are far less effective (big mek effects models within 9" for example). Plenty of things can clear normal, non conscript infantry hordes just fine.
No one has trouble killing those hordes because those armies are costed correctly, how is this unclear? That's why we don't complain about hordes, we complain about conscripts.. Because your hordes are too cheap and overpowered by comparison to every other horde army!
Do you not get this? It's like arguing no one had trouble killing carnifexes last edition, so why were people complaining about riptides? The answer is, one of those models was far far more point efficient than the other, and thus broken.
Though at T4 and 5++ with FNP they'd arguably be twice as hard to kill. Sure, they need support to get 5++ and FNP, but conscripts need support to not evaporate under a stern gaze. And a lot of Ork support tends to be a pretty decent fightin' unit itself.
GhostRecon wrote: Horde armies are a thing now. If you can't beat 150 Conscripts, what are you going to do against green tide Orks? Orks are near the bottom tier, right? But could you beat 180 Ork Boyz that have FNP/5++? I mean, I guess so, since they're not Conscripts.
Yeah, because every ork I kill is worth two conscripts. Orks have half as many models on the field in the first place, and those buffs you mentioned cost far more and are far less effective (big mek effects models within 9" for example). Plenty of things can clear normal, non conscript infantry hordes just fine.
No one has trouble killing those hordes because those armies are costed correctly, how is this unclear? That's why we don't complain about hordes, we complain about conscripts.. Because your hordes are too cheap and overpowered by comparison to every other horde army!
Do you not get this? It's like arguing no one had trouble killing carnifexes last edition, so why are people complaining about riptides? The answer is, one of those models was far far more point efficient than the other, and thus broken.
Actually I think Conscripts are fairly priced; as I've said before, it's a perfect storm of situations that the conscripts sort of 'fell' into utility inadvertently. A conscript is 1PPM cheaper than a guardsman for -1BS, -1WS, and -2 LD, while everything else is identical. I think that's a fair price discount for a stat loss. It isn't the conscripts fault that other units help mitigate their shortcomings.
Any price increase would make conscripts overpriced in a situation where those characters are slain/unavailable/whatever
GhostRecon wrote: Horde armies are a thing now. If you can't beat 150 Conscripts, what are you going to do against green tide Orks? Orks are near the bottom tier, right? But could you beat 180 Ork Boyz that have FNP/5++? I mean, I guess so, since they're not Conscripts.
Yeah, because every ork I kill is worth two conscripts. Orks have half as many models on the field in the first place, and those buffs you mentioned cost far more and are far less effective (big mek effects models within 9" for example). Plenty of things can clear normal, non conscript infantry hordes just fine.
No one has trouble killing those hordes because those armies are costed correctly, how is this unclear? That's why we don't complain about hordes, we complain about conscripts.. Because your hordes are too cheap and overpowered by comparison to every other horde army!
Do you not get this? It's like arguing no one had trouble killing carnifexes last edition, so why were people complaining about riptides? The answer is, one of those models was far far more point efficient than the other, and thus broken.
Let's see a horde list using Conscripts at ITC 2k pts, then. In this or in the locked other thread, I think I'm the only one who's posted one. One that's a TAC that could actually beat other tournament winners out there. Then do one where Conscripts are suddenly 4ppm - if you look, it won't have changed much.
As I and others have said, Conscripts points aren't the problem. Even at 4ppm they're no different. Their synergy with both Commissars and Orders are the problem.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Actually I think Conscripts are fairly priced; as I've said before, it's a perfect storm of situations that the conscripts sort of 'fell' into utility inadvertently. A conscript is 1PPM cheaper than a guardsman for -1BS, -1WS, and -2 LD, while everything else is identical. I think that's a fair price discount for a stat loss. It isn't the conscripts fault that other units help mitigate their shortcomings.
Any price increase would make conscripts overpriced in a situation where those characters are slain/unavailable/whatever
That's a fair price to apy for the absurd synergy they have. Or 6+ armor. If they work that well with characters, they should be trash without characters. That's an actual weakness. If they kinda work without characters but are amazing with them, that's overpowered. So either kill the synergy or have conscripts priced/balanced so anyone running them without support would be laughed at. Kinda like how termagaunts or grots are.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Actually I think Conscripts are fairly priced; as I've said before, it's a perfect storm of situations that the conscripts sort of 'fell' into utility inadvertently. A conscript is 1PPM cheaper than a guardsman for -1BS, -1WS, and -2 LD, while everything else is identical. I think that's a fair price discount for a stat loss. It isn't the conscripts fault that other units help mitigate their shortcomings.
Any price increase would make conscripts overpriced in a situation where those characters are slain/unavailable/whatever
That's a fair price to apy for the absurd synergy they have. Or 6+ armor. If they work that well with characters, they should be trash without characters. That's an actual weakness. If they kinda work without characters but are amazing with them, that's overpowered. So either kill the synergy or have conscripts priced/balanced so anyone running them without support would be laughed at. Kinda like how termagaunts or grots are.
Grots are overpriced, and I don't know much about termagaunts but if they can't stand on their own they're overpriced too.
Conscripts don't actaully have absurd synergy. They have 0 synergetic special rules. The rules that work well for them come from other models, which I could see you should increase in price, though then you're just making the problem of conscript spam worse because those units are now too expensive to support only a 10 man squad with.
Conscripts are absolutely trash without extra characters. Heck, against my army, Conscripts are /actually/ trash, even with characters, but superheavy tanks are apparently taboo or something for other armies to run.
vipoid wrote: Citation needed. What are you basing that on? I've yet to see you provide any math on this.
A vanguard gets 3 str 3 shots at 18 inches for 10 points. For the same cost, you get 3 conscripts, having 3 shots at 12-24 and 6 at 0-12, with BS 5+ (so half as many hit).
So at 18-24 conscripts have the advantage cause anything beats 0. At 12-18 vanguard is putting out twice as much damage due to higher BS. At 0-12, they are the same, vanguard has twice as many shots with half the BS.
That's *WITHOUT* a commander doubling up to 100 conscripts firepower for 30 points.
Vanguard offer more firepower than most infantry units. 3 str 3 shots is better than 1-2 str 4 shots from a tactical or SoB, for roughly equivalent prices.
Sisters have 4 S4 Shots, because you are using Dominions, who are 12ppm with a Storm Bolter, and will get into Rapid-Fire range.
Also, are you talking about Skitarii Vanguard, not Vanguard Vets?
Aesthete wrote: Why do you bring real actual games into this? This is all about mathhammer and theory crafting which clearly shows that conscripts and commissars are ridiculously overpowered and unbalanced.
If we don't see that reflected in actual play, that's because people are playing the game wrong.
Honestly, some people here have basically said they don't believe conscripts firepower could ever be useful, and have thus never bothered with FRFSRF or even concentrating them to try and shoot down an enemy unit as needed. So yes, some people have totally and fully admitted they've never even tried to use conscripts for anything but screening. Every time I mention how they are good at holding objectives I get crickets, as if people never realized cheap models = easier time controlling objectives, or have never bothered to concentrate conscripts around one for that purpose either.
So yes, every time someone insists all conscripts are good for is screening, that tells me they've never even tried to use them for anything else. Because I've played people who have done so, and seen conscripts can do a lot more than that.
Every player I've seen cluster up the conscripts to get everyone in FRFSRF has either done it at the end of the game, once the enemy has been worn out and isn't a threat anymore, or has lost quickly as a direct result of doing so. If the conscripts shorten their perimeter, the enemy just goes around.
I there was an IG player running tanks & conscripts yesterday, with sentinels for flank support. He was playing Harelquins, and when his conscripts moved together to bring all power to bear on a Starweaver [and kill it, with the help of another rifle squad with an Autocannon], two more starweavers jumped over the battle line and got stuck in with the tanks, turning them off.
I almost lost when Carnifexes breached the perimeter one time, as a result of Hormagaunts killing off about 40 of the guys, but I fed them a Land Raider to slow them down and rushed Leman Russes into position to finish them off.
Yeah, conscripts can't both be a shooting phalanx and a screening unit at the same time.
They're either awful at shooting, but spread out and can protect the tanks, or good at shooting but not as good as the tanks they just abandoned to get blenderized.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: Sisters have 4 S4 Shots, because you are using Dominions, who are 12ppm with a Storm Bolter, and will get into Rapid-Fire range.
Also, are you talking about Skitarii Vanguard, not Vanguard Vets?
Skitarii Vanguard, because I'm comparing basic infantry troop choices, not special weapon troops like dominions.
If we have to lo0k outside the troop slot fore firepower to match conscripts then they are, say it with me now, overpowered.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: Every player I've seen cluster up the conscripts to get everyone in FRFSRF has either done it at the end of the game, once the enemy has been worn out and isn't a threat anymore, or has lost quickly as a direct result of doing so. If the conscripts shorten their perimeter, the enemy just goes around.
I there was an IG player running tanks & conscripts yesterday, with sentinels for flank support. He was playing Harelquins, and when his conscripts moved together to bring all power to bear on a Starweaver [and kill it, with the help of another rifle squad], two more starweavers jumped over the battle line and got stuck in with the tanks, turning them off..
Yes, you don't concentrate them when they are 100% still essential obviously, but as cheap as they are, there is no reason you can't run enough to do both! You can have your screening unit and your concentrated firepower objective holder, it's not liek there is any limitation on conscripts beyond troop slots currently.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, conscripts can't both be a shooting phalanx and a screening unit at the same time.
They're either awful at shooting, but spread out and can protect the tanks, or good at shooting but not as good as the tanks they just abandoned to get blenderized.
They are a troop choice in an army with the cheapest and most useful HQs, who cost at absolute most 150 points for a full unit. Run enough for both!
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: Sisters have 4 S4 Shots, because you are using Dominions, who are 12ppm with a Storm Bolter, and will get into Rapid-Fire range.
Also, are you talking about Skitarii Vanguard, not Vanguard Vets?
Skitarii Vanguard, because I'm comparing basic infantry troop choices, not special weapon troops like dominions.
If we have to lo0k outside the troop slot fore firepower to match conscripts then they are, say it with me now, overpowered.
First of all, why? Is there some rule somewhere that says troops must have less firepower than, say, an HQ? Or anything else outside of the troops slots? Because Armoured Battlegroup has Leman Russ tanks as troops, and you've got to look to the Heavy Support section of Codex: IG to find firepower to match those troops.
You also have tanks, and tanks are fast. Tanks can melee. It's stupid, but it's true. If tanks melee the Conscripts, they're putting out half their firepower. If tanks lead a melee blender into combat, such as Khorne Berzerkers, well, the Conscripts can kiss their sorry asses goodbye.
Fast Melee with Fly can ignore the conscripts entirely, and just jump over them to chase after the big guys propping them up. IG tanks can't shoot if someone is engaging them in melee.
For armies that can't just zip up 24" on or before turn 1, I recommend transport tanks full of nasty things like Khorne Berzerkers. Even if they blow up all your boxes, the nasty in the box if pretty much fine, and you have an easy turn-2 charge with all your berserkers.
Really, from looking around, I'm seeing that most armies can deal with Conscripts and the armor behind them. Not easily, and not without some losses, but why should it be easy to wipe us off the table?
They are a troop choice in an army with the cheapest and most useful HQs, who cost at absolute most 150 points for a full unit. Run enough for both!
So your problem is with IG in general... or?
Because 150pts for a full unit you bought just for shooting in a lasgun phalanx could've bought you a Manticore and a Master of Ordinance to give it re-rolls? Which will have way more firepower than that conscript phalanx you are so worried about?
They are a troop choice in an army with the cheapest and most useful HQs, who cost at absolute most 150 points for a full unit. Run enough for both!
So your problem is with IG in general... or?
Because 150pts for a full unit you bought just for shooting in a lasgun phalanx could've bought you a Manticore and a Master of Ordinance to give it re-rolls? Which will have way more firepower than that conscript phalanx you are so worried about?
It's really a minimum of 200pts taking one troop and two elite slots because Conscripts without a Commissar and someone giving Orders are substantially less useful (arguably useless).
SilverAlien wrote: So yes, every time someone insists all conscripts are good for is screening, that tells me they've never even tried to use them for anything else. Because I've played people who have done so, and seen conscripts can do a lot more than that.
Yes.
Can anyone identify a basic troop - or any infantry - that does better versus any one wound targets once you factor in an order?
If conscripts are crap damage then every other basic troop is worse.
You don't need that 200 lasgun volley (although if you get it, and you will from time to time from botched assaults, you are laughing). 100 lasgun shots from 210~ points is more than enough - any getting into rapid fire range is just a further boost. In a stand up fight the conscripts do 3 times their damage to some hypothetical Marines. Even if you start going "well, my Marines are always in cover" (we both know this isn't true) they do 50% more.
They also don't die. They have better armour than gaunts and are cheaper. Boys are 100% more points but you will only kill 20% more conscripts with an S3 hit and just 6.6% more with a S4 hit. Yes you can chuck in painboys but that is further investment and it doesn't help much. You will kill about 2.6 conscripts for every Marine at S4 - but before weapons Marines are over 4 times the points (obviously this changes with Ravenguard).
If you have a weapon which will kill conscripts you will annihilate most other 1 wound infantry (except maybe brimstone - because they are equally stupid).
I also don't buy this "well its really hard to get all 50 guys into 24" range of something". It isn't. Sure its going to come down to how much LOS blocking terrain but unless you are piling on terrain to the point where its more like game of necromunda then most of the table is going to be open. That is true of my FLGS and every tournament I can think of. Its not a featureless desert but there are probably only a few truly LOS blocking pieces. You can't hide your entire army behind them.
Furthermore if you do pile on so much LOS blocking terrain that no one can draw a bead on anyone for several turns it just makes Guard artillery even more advantageous.
Because 150pts for a full unit you bought just for shooting in a lasgun phalanx could've bought you a Manticore and a Master of Ordinance to give it re-rolls? Which will have way more firepower than that conscript phalanx you are so worried about?
Okay, now compare it to an anti infantry option, like a wyvern. Compare say two wyverns vs 50 conscripts and a commander.
56 str 4 shots at bs 4+ vs 100-200 str 3 shots at bs 5+, even if you aren't getting most in rapid fire you are basically on par damage wise. The advantage wyverns have isn't firepower, it's range. While the conscripts are harder to kill and can hold objectives, and don't eat into heavy support slots you need for anti tank like say... manticores.
Using conscripts as general purpose infantry is perfectly viable. It's a good way to deal with other infantry and take objectives, in addition to screening.
Tyel wrote: Can anyone identify a basic troop - or any infantry - that does better versus any one wound targets once you factor in an order?
If conscripts are crap damage then every other basic troop is worse.
Exactly, other infantry don't compare to the absurdity than is conscripts.
Dominions can put out ever so much more firepower for cost... ignoring orders. They also aren't anywhere near as tough, and can't hold objectives as well. But they are still one of the rare exceptions, most armies don't have anything comparable to dominions either.
GhostRecon wrote: It's really a minimum of 200pts taking one troop and two elite slots because Conscripts without a Commissar and someone giving Orders are substantially less useful (arguably useless).
Take a company commander a commissar, two units of conscripts around them. You save points and you have to fill HQ slots anyways. It's safer and more efficient that way,
Tyel wrote: Can anyone identify a basic troop - or any infantry - that does better versus any one wound targets
Since we're talking about in a vacuum-- yes, actually, I can. Battle Sister Squads can output 72 boltgun shots at 3+ to-hit when in rapid fire range.
And that's WITHOUT HQ support. Add in a cheap canoness and they reroll half their misses, doing even more damage.
Fun fact is, canoness' support feature is an aura, not an order. So it can apply to as many squads as you want provided you can have at least one model in her a 12" circle.
SilverAlien wrote: So yes, every time someone insists all conscripts are good for is screening, that tells me they've never even tried to use them for anything else. Because I've played people who have done so, and seen conscripts can do a lot more than that.
Can anyone identify a basic troop - or any infantry - that does better versus any one wound targets once you factor in an order?
I believe Eldar Guardians do better against T4 2+, like Rubric Marines.
Tyel wrote: Can anyone identify a basic troop - or any infantry - that does better versus any one wound targets
Since we're talking about in a vacuum-- yes, actually, I can. Battle Sister Squads can output 72 boltgun shots at 3+ to-hit when in rapid fire range.
And that's WITHOUT HQ support. Add in a cheap canoness and they reroll half their misses, doing even more damage.
No they can't. 150 points of SoB (153 technically) can only output 34 shots. Even dominions armed with combi bolters only put out 52 shots, and we've already established they are another exception, and that 4 point combi bolter probably was balanced and not a typo given how powerful dominions again are compared to other similar units.
Tyel wrote: [quote=SilverAlien 733123 9502155 null
I also don't buy this "well its really hard to get all 50 guys into 24" range of something". It isn't. Sure its going to come down to how much LOS blocking terrain but unless you are piling on terrain to the point where its more like game of necromunda then most of the table is going to be open. That is true of my FLGS and every tournament I can think of. Its not a featureless desert but there are probably only a few truly LOS blocking pieces. You can't hide your entire army behind them.
Furthermore if you do pile on so much LOS blocking terrain that no one can draw a bead on anyone for several turns it just makes Guard artillery even more advantageous.
It's difficult to simultaneously stretch across the table to make an impossible wound allocation wall and then immediately contracting around a nucleus to be able to infinitely protect the commissar and FRFSRF with all 50 into something. Yeah, 60 points of fragile support can make them potentially hurt something, but they can't effectively do that and do everything else they're villianized for at the exact same time.
A lot of the things I'm reading remind me of the 5th ed GK hate threads. In a bad way.
Because 150pts for a full unit you bought just for shooting in a lasgun phalanx could've bought you a Manticore and a Master of Ordnance to give it re-rolls? Which will have way more firepower than that conscript phalanx you are so worried about?
Okay, now compare it to an anti infantry option, like a wyvern. Compare say two wyverns vs 50 conscripts and a commander.
56 str 4 shots at bs 4+ vs 100-200 str 3 shots at bs 5+, even if you aren't getting most in rapid fire you are basically on par damage wise. The advantage wyverns have isn't firepower, it's range. While the conscripts are harder to kill and can hold objectives, and don't eat into heavy support slots you need for anti tank like say... manticores.
So your refutation that 150 points of firepower is better spent on a Manticore is that... "Yes that's true. Here's this other unit that you didn't mention. SEE! It's the same as Conscripts. Except for range, where it's way better. Instead of better range, though, conscripts get these other things over here!" while somehow failing to mention that the Wyverns also do not require LOS to their targets.
Okay, I'm glad you see that Conscripts aren't OP then. *raises eyebrow in confusion*
What I don't understand is with all the suppose play testing, why is there no mechanic in the game that allows for additional dice to be used when units number more than 20+ models. They already have that mechanic with a handful of weapons that turn D3 into D6 when there are more than 5 models in a squad. Why did they not have flamers, light artillery, etc. get an additional D6 hits/shots against units with more than 20+ models. Especially since there are rules that kick in when a unit gets more than 20+ models (lesser daemons, orks) so they would know that these large size squads would be used. I think this would be the best way to "fix" the issue with large cheap model squads, without increasing weapon power against MEQ. It would also fill the need for weapons that can remove large numbers of cheap models which is lacking without templates.
Unit1126PLL wrote: So your refutation that 150 points of firepower is better spent on a Manticore is that... "Yes that's true. Here's this other unit that you didn't mention. SEE! It's the same as Conscripts. Except for range, where it's way better. Instead of better range, though, conscripts get these other things over here!" while somehow failing to mention that the Wyverns also do not require LOS to their targets.
Okay, I'm glad you see that Conscripts aren't OP then. *raises eyebrow in confusion*
I mean... you were arguing you'd be better of with an anti tank unit (manticore) than an anti infantry unit. You can take nothing but anti tank if you want.... but I'd assume you need some anti infantry in there somewhere. So I compared conscripts to the clsoest anti infantry cousin to a manticore, the wyvern.
If you want me to compare the manticore firing at infantry targets compared to the conscripts firing at infantry targets I could... I just assumed we could all kinda realize how that's going to go. The short version is, the conscripts kill dramatically more infantry than a manticore could ever hope to, because it is an anti tank weapon. Wooo?
If you can't see why basic infantry troops having the same rough firepower as artillery units, just with less range, I don't know how to help you.
The fact that you actually asked that question is hilarious beyond belief. Do you play 40k via graph paper or something?
Aesthete wrote: This is all about mathhammer and theory crafting
Why? Surely their performance on the tabletop is also important? Especially since there are far too many variables for mathhammer to be anything more than a vague guide.
Aesthete wrote: If we don't see that reflected in actual play, that's because people are playing the game wrong.
"If the facts don't fit my world view, then clearly the facts are wrong!"
Regardless, to answer your initial question, I asked about actual games because I was genuinely curious. Nothing more. Nothing less. You see, while I play IG I've never actually used conscripts. Nor have I played against anyone who does. Hence, I wanted to know about tactics - not just pure numbers.
A vanguard gets 3 str 3 shots at 18 inches for 10 points. For the same cost, you get 3 conscripts, having 3 shots at 12-24 and 6 at 0-12, with BS 5+ (so half as many hit).
So at 18-24 conscripts have the advantage cause anything beats 0. At 12-18 vanguard is putting out twice as much damage due to higher BS. At 0-12, they are the same, vanguard has twice as many shots with half the BS.
Vanguard weapons also do 2 damage on a to-wound roll of 6+. Also, unlike the Conscripts, the Vanguard can take 1 special weapon per 5.
In any case, I think you're vastly underestimating the difficulty of getting large numbers of conscripts into rapid-fire range. Especially if your opponent would rather you didn't.
What's more, we seem to once again be faced with Schrodinger's Conscripts. One moment they're a problem because they're bubble-wrapping artillery, the next moment they're apparently advancing as a block into rapid-fire range.
SilverAlien wrote: Vanguard offer more firepower than most infantry units. 3 str 3 shots is better than 1-2 str 4 shots from a tactical or SoB, for roughly equivalent prices.
Well, as you yourself said above, they'll obviously lose at the 18<-24" range. They'll probably be better at the 12<-18" range and about the same at 0-12".
They certainly wouldn't be my choice for infantry with the most firepower (I'd probably lean towards something like Immortals), though I'll confess to not having done the math.
Unit1126PLL wrote: So your refutation that 150 points of firepower is better spent on a Manticore is that... "Yes that's true. Here's this other unit that you didn't mention. SEE! It's the same as Conscripts. Except for range, where it's way better. Instead of better range, though, conscripts get these other things over here!" while somehow failing to mention that the Wyverns also do not require LOS to their targets.
Okay, I'm glad you see that Conscripts aren't OP then. *raises eyebrow in confusion*
I mean... you were arguing you'd be better of with an anti tank unit (manticore) than an anti infantry unit. You can take nothing but anti tank if you want.... but I'd assume you need some anti infantry in there somewhere. So I compared conscripts to the clsoest anti infantry cousin to a manticore, the wyvern.
If you want me to compare the manticore firing at infantry targets compared to the conscripts firing at infantry targets I could... I just assumed we could all kinda realize how that's going to go. The short version is, the conscripts kill dramatically more infantry than a manticore could ever hope to, because it is an anti tank weapon. Wooo?
If you can't see why basic infantry troops having the same rough firepower as artillery units, just with less range, I don't know how to help you.
The Manticore is an anti-everything platform, just like everything in this edition. The reason I bring it up is, against many armies (mine included), the Manticore is far far more valuable than the conscripts to the game, despite being cheaper in points.
Tank companies with 0 infantry are a thing now, so conscript hordes are in trouble. Flyer armies with 0 infantry are a thing now too, so conscript hordes also have trouble there. I could go on, if you like, but my point is that sometimes you need more than a lasgun for your 150 points, so the reason someone might not take 300 points of conscripts is that 150 is enough to screen their army, and 300 points is eating into firepower they have for other things, like, say, anti-tank weapons.
As for your last point, I really don't see a problem there. The artillery and infantry have similar targets, similar guns, and the artillery drastically outranges the infantry and does not require line of sight like the infantry do. Artillery drastically outperforming the infantry seems fine to me.
vipoid wrote: They certainly wouldn't be my choice for infantry with the most firepower (I'd probably lean towards something like Immortals), though I'll confess to not having done the math.
I merely picked the best one of the armies I was most familiar with.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The Manticore is an anti-everything target, just like everything in this edition. The reason I bring it up is, against many armies (mine included), the Manticore is far far more valuable than the conscripts to the game, despite being cheaper in points.
Tank companies with 0 infantry are a thing now, so conscript hordes are in trouble. Flyer armies with 0 infantry are a thing now too, so conscript hordes also have trouble there. I could go on, if you like, but my point is that sometimes you need more than a lasgun for your 150 points, so the reason someone might not take 300 points of conscripts is that 150 is enough to screen their army, and 300 points is eating into firepower they have for other things, like, say, anti-tank weapons.
As for your last point, I really don't see a problem there. The artillery and infantry have similar targets, similar guns, and the artillery drastically outranges the infantry and does not require line of sight like the infantry do. Artillery drastically outperforming the infantry seems fine to me.
No it isn't? It's awful against anything with a single wound, and cheaper 2 wound models aren't worth it. It has an average of 7 shots, at bs 4, and only fires four turns. That means that, fire at infantry, you will manage 14 kills on average, and even that's assuming you always wound and they don't have a save higher than a 5+. You do not fire a manticore at infantry unless the are multiwound infantry like terminators or something. Even primaris may not be valuable enough to justify shooting at.
Well... yes sometimes you'll run up against an army that uses no infantry and anti infantry units are wasted. That doesn't mean they aren't a good anti infantry choice. Considering a tac list tends be even split 4 units at 600 points, 700 with HQ, could be a reasonable investment.
Drastically outperforming? No. They aren't. That's the point. The conscripts actually put out more damage, the artillery just has more range on it. It isn't like we are talking abut sniping tanks or other artillery sitting at the back, this is anti infantry shooting. They are used for contesting objectives, and the conscripts still have two feet to work with.
xeen wrote: What I don't understand is with all the suppose play testing, why is there no mechanic in the game that allows for additional dice to be used when units number more than 20+ models. They already have that mechanic with a handful of weapons that turn D3 into D6 when there are more than 5 models in a squad. Why did they not have flamers, light artillery, etc. get an additional D6 hits/shots against units with more than 20+ models. Especially since there are rules that kick in when a unit gets more than 20+ models (lesser daemons, orks) so they would know that these large size squads would be used. I think this would be the best way to "fix" the issue with large cheap model squads, without increasing weapon power against MEQ. It would also fill the need for weapons that can remove large numbers of cheap models which is lacking without templates.
Yes they really should have made a "you could throw a rock and hit three" rule for big units, similar to how templates used to hit swarms extra hard. Morale would be a nice counter if all the offenders weren't exceptionally good at ignoring the mechanic.
As (partially) a marine player I remember getting demonized because my dudes didn't care about morale. Now they do and other people don't, but that seems to be a-ok. Just your typical double standards from the marine haters I guess.
Actually 10 immortals with tesla carbines with no buffs or support beats 50 conscripts with a commissar as long as they stay outside rapid fire range, even if the conscripts get the first shot and use a FRFSRF order every single turn. If you include that immortals can often find a cover bonus while conscripts almost never get it it's even kinda lopsided. And the immortals are cheaper than the 50+commissar let alone if you start to factor in the cost of the orders, but they're basically the same cost once you get into taking only 1 commissar for 2 or 3 units.
It takes the better part of 6 turns to do it but like if you've ever seen conscripts in practice they aren't very elegant blobs, the more of them you take it doesn't get multiplicative where you can say oh but if i have 3 units of 50 i can kill a whole unit of immortals and deny RP, you just can't. They don't fit in range together and it's much easier for the equivalent 3 immortal units to pack in and focus down the closest unit to force the conscripts to keep funneling in about 60 at a time and they won't realistically have orders every turn.
I think part of the problem people are running into when trying to math hammer out conscripts is their applying all the benefits of a conscript squad all at once, without recognizing that conscripts can usually only fulfill one of these rolls at a time and never can without support.
For example "omg conscript FRFSR is so broken" the person then points out that you can simply ignore the conscripts and go run though the rest of the IG lines. The persons Conscripts are now magically bubble rapping the rest of the army so that can't happen. The issue is if you have conga lined your conscripts into bubble rap then you aren't going to be able to maximize your FRFSRF. The person now counters that theres a second conscript squad standing there because "why wouldn't there be" but has failed to ever use there cost or the cost of the officers needed to make sure that the conscript squad is even useful.
In reality i think conscripts are a very strong unit when being supported (can be said for many units in the game) and they are good at lots of things. This issue is that using that unit for one of its strengths reduces the other strengths. Like the example above if conscripts are being used to bubble rap a whole army they potential firepower is very limited as well as the characters that are supporting them because you have to create gaps that can often be charged out of. If you use them as a blob FRFSRF killing bubble then they 1. can't be used as bubble rap 2. suffer from mobility issues with multiple groups (have to either have characters to buff each individual group (increase the costs used in all this math hammer) or you are stuck moving in a 6' bubble because of lack of vox casters.
In conclusion i really believe people think they are broken because they are factoring everything that they can potentially do into their point cost while in reality they can usually only do one of those things. They also have a short range of fire and are often going to take a fair amount of casualties even from random small arms fire before they ever get to interact with anything thus reducing their effectiveness at the above rolls. Finally above all snipers are the great equalizer, i can attest to how useless conscripts are when one of their supports characters gets snipped out first turn.
TL;DR
Are they good... yes
Are they broken.... no (they have glaring weaknesses as well as requiring at minimum 2 characters support as well as having the glaring weakness of snipers
Tau fire warriors can also do a really good job against T4. For 8 points a model they get S5 AP- Rapid 1 30", with the range being an important factor because it gives them a larger kill zone and allows them to usually reach into the enemy's deployment zone.
But where it gets good is when they have characters. They can benefit from a looooot of buffs.
A Cadre Fireblade gives pulse weapons an extra shot at half range, so 3 shots at 15" for pulse rifles. So it's basically a discount FRFSRF, that sacrifices a bit of power for being an aura instead of a single-target buff.
A Commander lets them re-roll all failed to-hit rolls, again in an aura.
Darkstrider can make them count a target's toughness as being 1 lower, which can be a boost at T3, T5, T6, and T10. This one is single-target.
An Ethereal can give them 6+ FNP, grant them LD9, and shave a casualty off any morale results (making them effectively LD10). In a 5-man squad this makes them effectively immune to morale. In 10-man squads it means they can lose 5 models without risking a morale check, and the most they can lose to morale is 2 (at 7 casualties they can only lose 2, at 8 they only have 2 left to lose). Although it doesn't grant the FNP and -1 to morale results at the same time, unless you have two of them.
A pathfinder team with a pulse accelerator can add 6" to their range, giving them 36" and extending the Cadre Fireblade's buff range to 18".
Markerlights don't do anything for them until 4 and 5 (because they're already re-rolling to hit and aren't using heavy weapons), but if it does reach that point then they can ignore cover and get +1 to hit. It will apply to anything shooting that target though, so it can be good for concentrating fire.
Granted, if you were to go all-in on stacking as many Fire Warrior buffs as humanly (or xeno-ly) possible, your list would basically consist entirely of Fire Warriors and supporting characters. But if you're only looking at mathhammering it, you can make a pretty impressive Firewarrior Doom Blob.
Having looked at the ETC lists there appear to be at least 10 AM players bringing at least 100 conscripts. One guy is bringing 400. There are almost no AM lists without any conscripts, and the majority bring 100+. Stormraven spam is the game of the day though.
ross-128 wrote: Tau fire warriors can also do a really good job against T4. For 8 points a model they get S5 AP- Rapid 1 30", with the range being an important factor because it gives them a larger kill zone and allows them to usually reach into the enemy's deployment zone.
Do you want me to mathhammer everything out? I already did in a different thread talking about tournament tau lists, the bottom line is fire warriors don't even compare well to properly supported gun drones (who in turn aren't that amazing). Fireblades aren't worth the cost due to pricing as the aura is so small and firewarriors must be taken in MSU due to ever present morale issues, so you are better off with more fire warriors as far as firepower goes.
GhostRecon wrote: It's really a minimum of 200pts taking one troop and two elite slots because Conscripts without a Commissar and someone giving Orders are substantially less useful (arguably useless).
Take a company commander a commissar, two units of conscripts around them. You save points and you have to fill HQ slots anyways. It's safer and more efficient that way,
Was going for absolute lowest amount of points; your suggestion is more efficient, but also costs 361pts.
Marmatag wrote: Katherine, in ITC you don't automatically go first if you have less drops. Counting a seize roll, it's roughly 60-40 if you finish first. Additionally you don't pick the deployment type or terrain, it's defined at the outsight on the mission printout.
And the deployment - I believe it's called the scouring - where you have access to opposite corners, with a 9" no-man's land in the middle.
I had less drops and went second. Also, I don't play sisters of battle. I didn't know they could do a 25+ inch move on turn 1 to get into flamer range, that's impressive. Your alpha strike is better than mine, that's for sure.
Going first would have helped dramatically.
You're Grey Knights, right?
How about try:
2x Grand Masters, one with Infinity Gate and one with Hammerhand, both with Psilencers
4x Strike Squad with Psilencer
1x Interceptors with Psilencer
1x Interceptors w/o Psilencer
Purge Soul across the the board.
Start with Infinity gate, a strike squad, and the Interceptors on the board. Hide in a house or something. Turn 1, move everything up to 9" from the conscripts using Infinity Gate, deep strike, and the Interceptor's ability, purge soul the Commissar, then dump bullets into them. It's crappy that you don't get Bolt Pistols, too, but you do get 138 S4 AP0 shots, as well as 8 more mortal wounds. Assuming you rolled not-crap for Purge Soul, you just wiped out the Conscripts. Otherwise, with clever target selection, you can probably still get off a charge. Be aware, because you might want to drop in cover if you don't think you can keep a 9" charge after your shooting phase. Take the Manticore salvo, lose maybe 10 guys, then close in and melee them to death with Force Falchions.
The only problem is that it may not work as well as Dominions or Hormagaunts because the IG player actually has the ability to play against it, with a wider conscript perimeter and protecting the Commissar by placing him at the end of a conga-line of conscripts behind the Manticores, at which point you do have to slog your way through. In this case, I might keep the interceptors at the max range they can be, then wait for the opening once the conscripts thin out and use their ability then to push in and keep up the pressure.
It was a tournament, but i can't imagine anyone playing any ruleset other than ITC at this point. Being able to always go first seems unfair, especially when half of the enemy army must be on the table.
I did mention it was ITC, but after the original post asking for feedback. I also didn't mention that there were buildings between the zones, so you can't move in a straight line to get to the guard.
I plan to avoid ITC rules, unless I'm playing tournaments.
The regular deployment scheme actually is designed to balance armies that are trying to go for a maximum-power alpha-strike. It does a fairly good job of it too, until two armies with the same idea come up upon one another.
One major balancing factor of Guard alpha-strike lists is the fact that they almost always have to go second, which gives the enemy a turn to react to it. Armies like the Sisters and Grey Knights, who are also armies that can do a powerful alpha-strike, but not as powerful as the rain of fire the Guard brings, get fewer drops than the Guard and get to do their before the Guard does.
Armies that have less firepower and more toughness get to go first more often than those like guard who have lots of killy, fragile units.
So, I am definitely adding more power armored GK into my army. I will happily admit that bringing paladins is a mistake in virtually any point size below 2,000. I definitely focus on incinerators, and psilencers. They're our best overall weapons - Incinerators because they're actually strength 6 flamers and wound guard on 2s, and psilencers because of volume of fire, and the ability to kill 2 wound models.
That said, I will also take an NDK. While they're not amazing, what they have is 12 wounds, and a 5++. A guard player must address the NDK, because if it makes it into melee with tanks, it will end people's day, with a strength 12, AP-4, D6 (3 dmg minimum) hammer.
But in reality, there is no 1,000 point GK list that can efficiently kill conscripts and also threaten tanks, while also being a "take all comers" list. My goal with the other list was a "take all comers" list. I actually did well against Necrons, Tau, and Space Marines. Additionally purge soul requires line of sight, as well as having a 12" range, so you'll never hit a commissar, period.
I do agree that going first with less deployments would directly benefit me... And while I would definitely prefer that, since ITC has made the call - even though they didn't have a vote, which I HATE - I'll stick with it until it changes.
Anyway, I still maintain that in its current form, Imperial Guard is way too strong, and conscripts are the reason for that. People mention they'd bring rank-and-file guardsman if conscripts got nerfed - fine - do that - i'm 100% okay with that. It's fluffy and strong. I have no issues with strong. I have issues with stuff that presents 0 counterplay on my part.
Anyway, I still maintain that in its current form, Imperial Guard is way too strong, and conscripts are the reason for that. People mention they'd bring rank-and-file guardsman if conscripts got nerfed - fine - do that - i'm 100% okay with that. It's fluffy and strong. I have no issues with strong. I have issues with stuff that presents 0 counterplay on my part.
Now, I don't play with Conscripts unless I want a fluffy battle, but if I had say 50 Conscripts and changed them into 40 Guardsmen instead, would you be able to counterplay it? Seems like 20% reduction of models would still present a challenge for armies which are struggling with 50. Now, maybe not 50 and 40, but 150 and 120 instead or whatever amount of Conscripts you have problem with switched to 75-80% of that in guardsmen?
When I heard the Guardsmen were going to be 4 points each, I thought for sure this would be the death of Conscripts. After all, why bother with BS5+ on 50 guys when for 50 points more you get BS4+, increasing output 150%; that's 150% of the damage for 133% of the cost! But it turns out that all the fuss and complaining is about Conscripts, and even with their point cost reduction Guardsmen are left in the dust.
I like Conscripts. I used them with Cdr. Chenkov when he was a thing, and then didn't once he was removed because Guardsmen were just better. I'm glad they're good now; they're a unit that captures the spirit of the Imperial Guard quite well.
Anyway, I think conscripts are pretty fair. Tyranids can turn-1 charge en-masse easily, Sisters of Battle can cross the no-man's land for close-range shooting, devastating antiinfantry and antitank shooting on turn one with our entire force, Orks have a fair shot at getting a turn-1 charge with a single unit, and bring a huge amount of very scary infantry than can turn 2 charge at worse, Chaos Marines have Berzerkers who can ride up safely in a transport, and whether you kill the transport or not they're still charging on turn 2 and there's almost nothing you can do about it, Harlequins have open-topped transports with massive move range and can jump over units with all their infantry, same for Dark Eldar, Necrons are unfazed if you don't manage to kill them all in one turn, which takes a lot of concentrated firepower, etc.
Marmatag wrote: Katherine, in ITC you don't automatically go first if you have less drops. Counting a seize roll, it's roughly 60-40 if you finish first. Additionally you don't pick the deployment type or terrain, it's defined at the outsight on the mission printout.
And the deployment - I believe it's called the scouring - where you have access to opposite corners, with a 9" no-man's land in the middle.
I had less drops and went second. Also, I don't play sisters of battle. I didn't know they could do a 25+ inch move on turn 1 to get into flamer range, that's impressive. Your alpha strike is better than mine, that's for sure.
Going first would have helped dramatically.
You're Grey Knights, right?
How about try:
2x Grand Masters, one with Infinity Gate and one with Hammerhand, both with Psilencers
4x Strike Squad with Psilencer
1x Interceptors with Psilencer
1x Interceptors w/o Psilencer
Purge Soul across the the board.
Start with Infinity gate, a strike squad, and the Interceptors on the board. Hide in a house or something. Turn 1, move everything up to 9" from the conscripts using Infinity Gate, deep strike, and the Interceptor's ability, purge soul the Commissar, then dump bullets into them. It's crappy that you don't get Bolt Pistols, too, but you do get 138 S4 AP0 shots, as well as 8 more mortal wounds. Assuming you rolled not-crap for Purge Soul, you just wiped out the Conscripts. Otherwise, with clever target selection, you can probably still get off a charge. Be aware, because you might want to drop in cover if you don't think you can keep a 9" charge after your shooting phase. Take the Manticore salvo, lose maybe 10 guys, then close in and melee them to death with Force Falchions.
The only problem is that it may not work as well as Dominions or Hormagaunts because the IG player actually has the ability to play against it, with a wider conscript perimeter and protecting the Commissar by placing him at the end of a conga-line of conscripts behind the Manticores, at which point you do have to slog your way through. In this case, I might keep the interceptors at the max range they can be, then wait for the opening once the conscripts thin out and use their ability then to push in and keep up the pressure.
It was a tournament, but i can't imagine anyone playing any ruleset other than ITC at this point. Being able to always go first seems unfair, especially when half of the enemy army must be on the table.
I did mention it was ITC, but after the original post asking for feedback. I also didn't mention that there were buildings between the zones, so you can't move in a straight line to get to the guard.
I plan to avoid ITC rules, unless I'm playing tournaments.
The regular deployment scheme actually is designed to balance armies that are trying to go for a maximum-power alpha-strike. It does a fairly good job of it too, until two armies with the same idea come up upon one another.
One major balancing factor of Guard alpha-strike lists is the fact that they almost always have to go second, which gives the enemy a turn to react to it. Armies like the Sisters and Grey Knights, who are also armies that can do a powerful alpha-strike, but not as powerful as the rain of fire the Guard brings, get fewer drops than the Guard and get to do their before the Guard does.
Armies that have less firepower and more toughness get to go first more often than those like guard who have lots of killy, fragile units.
So, I am definitely adding more power armored GK into my army. I will happily admit that bringing paladins is a mistake in virtually any point size below 2,000. I definitely focus on incinerators, and psilencers. They're our best overall weapons - Incinerators because they're actually strength 6 flamers and wound guard on 2s, and psilencers because of volume of fire, and the ability to kill 2 wound models.
That said, I will also take an NDK. While they're not amazing, what they have is 12 wounds, and a 5++. A guard player must address the NDK, because if it makes it into melee with tanks, it will end people's day, with a strength 12, AP-4, D6 (3 dmg minimum) hammer.
But in reality, there is no 1,000 point GK list that can efficiently kill conscripts and also threaten tanks, while also being a "take all comers" list. My goal with the other list was a "take all comers" list. I actually did well against Necrons, Tau, and Space Marines. Additionally purge soul requires line of sight, as well as having a 12" range, so you'll never hit a commissar, period.
I do agree that going first with less deployments would directly benefit me... And while I would definitely prefer that, since ITC has made the call - even though they didn't have a vote, which I HATE - I'll stick with it until it changes.
Anyway, I still maintain that in its current form, Imperial Guard is way too strong, and conscripts are the reason for that. People mention they'd bring rank-and-file guardsman if conscripts got nerfed - fine - do that - i'm 100% okay with that. It's fluffy and strong. I have no issues with strong. I have issues with stuff that presents 0 counterplay on my part.
Purge Soul will also kill around 6 or 7 conscripts if you can't get the Commissar. I also did get my Commissar zapped by purge soul. He got within 12" had Line of Effect, and zapped him, so it's definitely possible. He had killed off almost all the conscripts, so there weren't enough of them to form a conga line to safety, so I had to move the commissar up to keep the Conscripts in place.
IG are way too strong, but it's Elysians and Scions that are the reason, not Conscripts. Conscripts are guard doing guard things as guard should, well enough to be competitive, especially against Tyranids, Orks, Sisters, etc. Scions are guard doing space marine things better than space marines. And because guard has cheap units, we can put way more things into reserve than Space Marines can.
Purge Soul will also kill around 6 or 7 conscripts if you can't get the Commissar. I also did get my Commissar zapped by purge soul. He got within 12" had Line of Effect, and zapped him, so it's definitely possible. He had killed off almost all the conscripts, so there weren't enough of them to form a conga line to safety, so I had to move the commissar up to keep the Conscripts in place.
IG are way too strong, but it's Elysians and Scions that are the reason, not Conscripts. Conscripts are guard doing guard things as guard should, well enough to be competitive, especially against Tyranids, Orks, Sisters, etc. Scions are guard doing space marine things better than space marines. And because guard has cheap units, we can put way more things into reserve than Space Marines can.
The leadership of conscripts for the purpose of purge soul is 9, when they are near a commissar. So, it's 10+D6 vs 9+D6. Orks, for instance, are actually immune to purge soul because of their size. So, with a commissar, unless Draigo has a leadership buff, cannot kill 7 conscripts.
But for the record, I usually take the +1 leadership on Draigo, because purge soul is actually incredibly effective against anything but guard & Orks. I posted a batrep where Draigo killed 7 death company with a purge soul, because their leadership is 7. For the record, I *always* take purge soul on Draigo, or Voldus.
And i do agree that guard do marine things better than marines. This is the glass cannon edition, toughness 3 doesn't matter when most units drop in, shoot, and die, regardless of 3 or 4 toughness, and a 3+ or 4+ or 5+ save.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
daedalus wrote: We also determined earlier that psychic powers don't count for this conversation because they're effective.
Keep the trolling to a minimum, especially when you're supporting a claim by someone that was made in error.
Automatically Appended Next Post: If you're going to look at psychic powers, you'd want to glance at death guard. They have a solid anti-horde power.
Purge Soul will also kill around 6 or 7 conscripts if you can't get the Commissar. I also did get my Commissar zapped by purge soul. He got within 12" had Line of Effect, and zapped him, so it's definitely possible. He had killed off almost all the conscripts, so there weren't enough of them to form a conga line to safety, so I had to move the commissar up to keep the Conscripts in place.
IG are way too strong, but it's Elysians and Scions that are the reason, not Conscripts. Conscripts are guard doing guard things as guard should, well enough to be competitive, especially against Tyranids, Orks, Sisters, etc. Scions are guard doing space marine things better than space marines. And because guard has cheap units, we can put way more things into reserve than Space Marines can.
The leadership of conscripts for the purpose of purge soul is 9, when they are near a commissar. So, it's 10+D6 vs 9+D6. Orks, for instance, are actually immune to purge soul because of their size. So, with a commissar, unless Draigo has a leadership buff, cannot kill 7 conscripts.
But for the record, I usually take the +1 leadership on Draigo, because purge soul is actually incredibly effective against anything but guard & Orks.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
daedalus wrote: We also determined earlier that psychic powers don't count for this conversation because they're effective.
Keep the trolling to a minimum, especially when you're supporting a claim by someone that was made in error.
Commissars are leadership 8.
So that's 2-3 on average. Besides the point, which was, that even if you can't reach him, you can still frag them with Space Magic for a few extra wounds while working your way there.
If the hypothetical list I posited kills 8 with smites and 2 with Purge Soul, and then fires their guns in double-tap at them, it kills a total of 52.
Also, to head this off, psychic powers don't compensate, one psychic power per turn isn't compensation.
You posted this after Katherine brought up purge soul. Based on her math i'm assuming she was expecting a base compare of conscript leadership (4) versus the caster (typically 9). But it doesn't work that way, it's nuanced but purge soul compares against the modified value.
Purge Soul will also kill around 6 or 7 conscripts if you can't get the Commissar. I also did get my Commissar zapped by purge soul. He got within 12" had Line of Effect, and zapped him, so it's definitely possible. He had killed off almost all the conscripts, so there weren't enough of them to form a conga line to safety, so I had to move the commissar up to keep the Conscripts in place.
IG are way too strong, but it's Elysians and Scions that are the reason, not Conscripts. Conscripts are guard doing guard things as guard should, well enough to be competitive, especially against Tyranids, Orks, Sisters, etc. Scions are guard doing space marine things better than space marines. And because guard has cheap units, we can put way more things into reserve than Space Marines can.
The leadership of conscripts for the purpose of purge soul is 9, when they are near a commissar. So, it's 10+D6 vs 9+D6. Orks, for instance, are actually immune to purge soul because of their size. So, with a commissar, unless Draigo has a leadership buff, cannot kill 7 conscripts.
But for the record, I usually take the +1 leadership on Draigo, because purge soul is actually incredibly effective against anything but guard & Orks.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
daedalus wrote: We also determined earlier that psychic powers don't count for this conversation because they're effective.
Keep the trolling to a minimum, especially when you're supporting a claim by someone that was made in error.
Commissars are leadership 8.
So that's 2-3 on average. Besides the point, which was, that even if you can't reach him, you can still frag them with Space Magic for a few extra wounds.
Well, if you're rolling a d6, and i'm rolling a d6, it's an expected value of 1, with leadership 9. It's not worth facing a perils for 1 expected wound. Getting a perils can cost me the game. Besides i would rather purge something that is bigger than conscripts, ideally. Or, spend the power using smite. it guarantees a wound.
Also, to head this off, psychic powers don't compensate, one psychic power per turn isn't compensation.
Now read the quote in context, and see I was arguing a single psychic power cannot take the place of dedicated anti character units like snipers, given one scales properly and one doesn't. Which is still true.
You posted this after Katherine brought up purge soul. Based on her math i'm assuming she was expecting a base compare of conscript leadership (4) versus the caster (typically 9). But it doesn't work that way, it's nuanced but purge soul compares against the modified value.
I mean, I was responding to Katherine, but I was referencing something actually said in the thread. There might have been a little snideness involved, but I meant it mostly at the original comment. I suppose that's bad on me, because this is supposed to be the "civil" thread. I'll try to do so less in the future.
Now read the quote in context, and see I was arguing a single psychic power cannot take the place of dedicated anti character units like snipers, given one scales properly and one doesn't. Which is still true.
Yes. One is also generally much more effective than the other too.
You posted this after Katherine brought up purge soul. Based on her math i'm assuming she was expecting a base compare of conscript leadership (4) versus the caster (typically 9). But it doesn't work that way, it's nuanced but purge soul compares against the modified value.
Well, if you're rolling a d6, and i'm rolling a d6, it's an expected value of 1, with leadership 9. It's not worth facing a perils for 1 expected wound. Getting a perils can cost me the game. Besides i would rather purge something that is bigger than conscripts, ideally. Or, spend the power using smite. it guarantees a wound.
Anyway, I wouldn't be afraid of Perils. The Grand Master has 6 wounds or something, and Perils does D3 if it happens at all. Anything that has a 1-in-18 chance of happening isn't something I'd be worried about unless I'm doing it fifty times, and even then D3 Mortal Wounds isn't terrifying if you have more than 3. For comparison, you are 3 times as likely to take 2 times as much damage, which is enough to be catastrophic while D3 isn't, from using a Meltagun to blow a tank up.
I lost 18 Sisters Dominions, 10 with meltaguns, a Penitent Engine, as well as 5 wounds from Celestine and 4 from an Immolator, to two Land Raiders detonating yesterday night. This isn't exactly stopping me from attacking tanks with Meltaguns.
With regards to snipers: GIVE UP. It's more efficient just to shoot them or melee them dead. Most armies can shoot or melee them dead in 1-2 turns. There are only a few than cannot either ignore them or easily remove them, namely Space Marines and their even-more-specialist kin, the Deathwatch and Grey Knights.
You posted this after Katherine brought up purge soul. Based on her math i'm assuming she was expecting a base compare of conscript leadership (4) versus the caster (typically 9). But it doesn't work that way, it's nuanced but purge soul compares against the modified value.
Well, if you're rolling a d6, and i'm rolling a d6, it's an expected value of 1, with leadership 9. It's not worth facing a perils for 1 expected wound. Getting a perils can cost me the game. Besides i would rather purge something that is bigger than conscripts, ideally. Or, spend the power using smite. it guarantees a wound.
Lets stop insulting each other, yes?
Anyway, I wouldn't be afraid of Perils. The Grand Master has 6 wounds or something, and Perils does D3 if it happens at all. Anything that has a 1-in-18 chance of happening isn't something I'd be worried about unless I'm doing it fifty times, and even then D3 Mortal Wounds isn't terrifying if you have more than 3. For comparison, you are 3 times as likely to take 2 times as much damage from using a Meltagun blowing a tank up.
You're right, I can keep it above board. It's frustrating that I asked for help countering the Guard i'm facing and I get met with a stream of "get goods," and "GK have no counter." This feels a lot like 7th where I am playing an uphill battle against most people I play with, since most people play guard now.
I have no real answer to guard. I don't lose all my games against them, but that's usually because my opponent makes a tactical error, or I roll well on my alpha.
Purge soul is reserved for Guard units carrying meltas, or heavy weapons. In the example I gave you - you're correct - I did throw out purge soul on conscripts. Unfortunately with purge soul, it's a hit or miss kind of thing. In that specific case I rolled poorly and did 0 mortals, but I can appreciate its value, I love the spell, it's fantastic. Just, ironically, not against large blobs.
Playing guard feels a lot like playing against 7th edition Tau or Eldar. You might win some games, but in reality, the odds are heavily stacked against you, and your stuff will get removed with incredible ease.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: Anyway, I think conscripts are pretty fair. Tyranids can turn-1 charge en-masse easily, Sisters of Battle can cross the no-man's land for close-range shooting, devastating antiinfantry and antitank shooting on turn one with our entire force, Orks have a fair shot at getting a turn-1 charge with a single unit, and bring a huge amount of very scary infantry than can turn 2 charge at worse, Chaos Marines have Berzerkers who can ride up safely in a transport, and whether you kill the transport or not they're still charging on turn 2 and there's almost nothing you can do about it, Harlequins have open-topped transports with massive move range and can jump over units with all their infantry, same for Dark Eldar, Necrons are unfazed if you don't manage to kill them all in one turn, which takes a lot of concentrated firepower, etc.
IG has absolutely amazing artillery and cheap characters to act as force multipliers, access to morale immunity which is relatively rare, and more. I'm still unclear why that means they get under costed basic infantry superior to anything anyone else gets. You keep saying they are balanced but neither you nor anyone else has supplied any reasoning that hasn't been debunked.
They can be killed by a unit much more expensive? Okay, now see that that same unit kills off any other infantry of comparable cost dramatically easier, meaning that the points being spent to kill conscripts are still not comparable to the points spent to kill any other infantry unit in the game.
Conscripts don't have firepower so they deserve to be super tough? For their cost, they actually have superior firepower to many, and comparable firepower to the few exceptions (and this is without orders I remind you). So no, they are top tier as far as they go, certainly don't deserve absurd toughness due to their firepower.
If they concentrate firepower they aren't doing a good job of screening, which is what they are there for? Okay, except we've shown they are extremely useful when fielded the way most armies field infantry, as objective holders with anti infantry weaponry, better than most. You can use different units of conscripts for both jobs. I mean, arguing conscripts aren't worth taking for this job basically means you think almost every other army is mostly comprised of useless units. Which should tell you something about balance again.
Seriously someone, give me a good reason for them being balanced and I'll listen. But I haven't heard one yet.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: With regards to snipers: GIVE UP. It's more efficient just to shoot them or melee them dead. Most armies can shoot or melee them dead in 1-2 turns.
No it isn't? It literally isn't. If you kill he commissar, you basically inflict double damage to the conscripts from then on. That's generally cheaper than the amount of anti infantry shooting it'd take to double conscript causalities. Particularly given commissar typically double up on units, so removing one is a huge deal.
You posted this after Katherine brought up purge soul. Based on her math i'm assuming she was expecting a base compare of conscript leadership (4) versus the caster (typically 9). But it doesn't work that way, it's nuanced but purge soul compares against the modified value.
Well, if you're rolling a d6, and i'm rolling a d6, it's an expected value of 1, with leadership 9. It's not worth facing a perils for 1 expected wound. Getting a perils can cost me the game. Besides i would rather purge something that is bigger than conscripts, ideally. Or, spend the power using smite. it guarantees a wound.
Lets stop insulting each other, yes?
Anyway, I wouldn't be afraid of Perils. The Grand Master has 6 wounds or something, and Perils does D3 if it happens at all. Anything that has a 1-in-18 chance of happening isn't something I'd be worried about unless I'm doing it fifty times, and even then D3 Mortal Wounds isn't terrifying if you have more than 3. For comparison, you are 3 times as likely to take 2 times as much damage from using a Meltagun blowing a tank up.
You're right, I can keep it above board. It's frustrating that I asked for help countering the Guard i'm facing and I get met with a stream of "get goods," and "GK have no counter." This feels a lot like 7th where I am playing an uphill battle against most people I play with, since most people play guard now.
I have no real answer to guard. I don't lose all my games against them, but that's usually because my opponent makes a tactical error, or I roll well on my alpha.
Purge soul is reserved for Guard units carrying meltas, or heavy weapons. In the example I gave you - you're correct - I did throw out purge soul on conscripts. Unfortunately with purge soul, it's a hit or miss kind of thing. In that specific case I rolled poorly and did 0 mortals, but I can appreciate its value, I love the spell, it's fantastic. Just, ironically, not against large blobs.
Playing guard feels a lot like playing against 7th edition Tau or Eldar. You might win some games, but in reality, the odds are heavily stacked against you, and your stuff will get removed with incredible ease.
How about Stormraven Gunships and Land Raider Crusaders?
The latter are absolutely brutal. 12 S6 shots hitting on 3's, wounding on 2's, with an addition 28 bolter shots, and a bonus Multimelta to launch at another tank for good measure, can take a fair chunk out of a conscript squad while being fairly proofed against return fire.
But you can't snipe a commissar unless your opponent is dead from the neck up. You should never be able to see a commissar, ever, or the guard player deserves to lose.
You posted this after Katherine brought up purge soul. Based on her math i'm assuming she was expecting a base compare of conscript leadership (4) versus the caster (typically 9). But it doesn't work that way, it's nuanced but purge soul compares against the modified value.
Well, if you're rolling a d6, and i'm rolling a d6, it's an expected value of 1, with leadership 9. It's not worth facing a perils for 1 expected wound. Getting a perils can cost me the game. Besides i would rather purge something that is bigger than conscripts, ideally. Or, spend the power using smite. it guarantees a wound.
Lets stop insulting each other, yes?
Anyway, I wouldn't be afraid of Perils. The Grand Master has 6 wounds or something, and Perils does D3 if it happens at all. Anything that has a 1-in-18 chance of happening isn't something I'd be worried about unless I'm doing it fifty times, and even then D3 Mortal Wounds isn't terrifying if you have more than 3. For comparison, you are 3 times as likely to take 2 times as much damage from using a Meltagun blowing a tank up.
You're right, I can keep it above board. It's frustrating that I asked for help countering the Guard i'm facing and I get met with a stream of "get goods," and "GK have no counter." This feels a lot like 7th where I am playing an uphill battle against most people I play with, since most people play guard now.
I have no real answer to guard. I don't lose all my games against them, but that's usually because my opponent makes a tactical error, or I roll well on my alpha.
Purge soul is reserved for Guard units carrying meltas, or heavy weapons. In the example I gave you - you're correct - I did throw out purge soul on conscripts. Unfortunately with purge soul, it's a hit or miss kind of thing. In that specific case I rolled poorly and did 0 mortals, but I can appreciate its value, I love the spell, it's fantastic. Just, ironically, not against large blobs.
Playing guard feels a lot like playing against 7th edition Tau or Eldar. You might win some games, but in reality, the odds are heavily stacked against you, and your stuff will get removed with incredible ease.
How about Stormraven Gunships and Land Raider Crusaders?
The latter are absolutely brutal. 12 S6 shots hitting on 3's, wounding on 2's, with an addition 28 bolter shots, and a bonus Multimelta to launch at another tank for good measure, can take a fair chunk out of a conscript squad while being fairly proofed against return fire.
Stormravens are similar, and fly to boot.
Yes, this is exactly right. I posted earlier in the thread that my best counter as GK is in the Stormraven. There's a reason everyone space marines is spamming Stormravens, they're our best chance at actually fighting guard, and other top tier lists.
Here's my 2000 point list in its current iteration:
Battalion Detachment HQ: Voldus (Knows all 3 powers) Draigo (Purge Soul, Gate of Infinity; Warlord, +1 Leadership)
Heavy Support: Purgation Squad (4x Psilencer, 1x Nemesis Warding Stave - for melee invuln); Gate of Infinity Purgation Squad (4x Incinerator, 1x Nemesis Warding Stave - for melee invuln); Gate of Infinity Nemesis Dreadknight (Heavy psycannon, Nemesis Greathammer); Gate of Infinity
With 6 drops i usually get the +1. The extra command points are nice to protect me against perils, since i cast so many powers, and to reroll as much damage & saves as possible while at full strength.
It's not a dedicated anti-guard list, because i do face other things.
IG has absolutely amazing artillery and cheap characters to act as force multipliers, access to morale immunity which is relatively rare, and more. I'm still unclear why that means they get under costed basic infantry superior to anything anyone else gets. You keep saying they are balanced but neither you nor anyone else has supplied any reasoning that hasn't been debunked.
They can be killed by a unit much more expensive? Okay, now see that that same unit kills off any other infantry of comparable cost dramatically easier, meaning that the points being spent to kill conscripts are still not comparable to the points spent to kill any other infantry unit in the game.
Conscripts don't have firepower so they deserve to be super tough? For their cost, they actually have superior firepower to many, and comparable firepower to the few exceptions (and this is without orders I remind you). So no, they are top tier as far as they go, certainly don't deserve absurd toughness due to their firepower.
If they concentrate firepower they aren't doing a good job of screening, which is what they are there for? Okay, except we've shown they are extremely useful when fielded the way most armies field infantry, as objective holders with anti infantry weaponry, better than most. You can use different units of conscripts for both jobs. I mean, arguing conscripts aren't worth taking for this job basically means you think almost every other army is mostly comprised of useless units. Which should tell you something about balance again.
Seriously someone, give me a good reason for them being balanced and I'll listen. But I haven't heard one yet.
Without them, Tyranids, Orks, Sisters and such would just walk all over us. That's why.
200 points per unit is very fair for being able to actually play the game the way the army works in the fluff, considering that we wouldn't even bother putting things on the table against Tyranids, Chaos, Sisters, etc.
They're also very surmountable. Note that Sisters and Eldar can jump right over them to assault the tanks as if they weren't there with Seraphim and Harlequins, and Hormagaunts, Berzerkers, and Boyz can plow right into them, butcher them, and move on.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: With regards to snipers: GIVE UP. It's more efficient just to shoot them or melee them dead. Most armies can shoot or melee them dead in 1-2 turns.
No it isn't? It literally isn't. If you kill he commissar, you basically inflict double damage to the conscripts from then on. That's generally cheaper than the amount of anti infantry shooting it'd take to double conscript causalities. Particularly given commissar typically double up on units, so removing one is a huge deal.
Considering he's impossible to kill, every point spent on a sniper is, in my opinion, wasted. It would take something like 154 points of Ratlings to kill a Commissar in one turn. With 150 points, I can buy 2.5 squads of Dominions, and kill 15 more of them, approximately 5 fewer than I would have killed through Battleshock if the Commissar died. And, of course, if we bring 150 points of marksmen, they don't have anything left to do once the Commissar is dead, while 150 points of Dominions can keep shooting at other things. And if we bring less than 150 points of marksmen, we might as well not have them because our next round's shooting will kill the conscripts anyway,
SilverAlien wrote: No they can't. 150 points of SoB (153 technically) can only output 34
141 points of Battle Sisters first use an Act of Faith at the start of the round to put out 24 boltgun shots within 12", and 12 storm bolter shots within 12" (they're rapid fire 2, so 4 shots each at half range, with three storm bolters in the squad). This is 36 boltgun shots. Then, during their shooting phase, they put out another 24 boltgun shots and 12 stormbolter shots. This results in a total of 72 boltgun shots-- exactly what I said they could do in a single turn.
Are you seriously trying to tell a veteran Sisters of Battle player how her army works? You don't know gak. Don't fething try to correct me about my own army when you don't even know gak all about your own.
Marmatag wrote: Wouldn't you almost always use the acts of faith to get the extra movement? Getting Celestine into melee has to be like priority 1.
I might also start fielding Celestine in my GK list. I spent all this time painting her in 7th, and she's probably hands down my favorite model.
No.
On turn 1, I use it to move units. On turn 2, I use it to make units shoot. On turn 3, I use it to heal Celestine, and the other one to make units shoot.
Marmatag wrote: Wouldn't you almost always use the acts of faith to get the extra movement? Getting Celestine into melee has to be like priority 1.
Guard players have repeatedly said it's a waste of orders to apply them to conscripts when you could apply the orders to a unit with superior firepower. But this gets ignored because OH MY FETHING GAWD WHAT DA FETH BARBEQUE, CONSCRIPTS OHPEEEEEEE!
If someone is going to complain about a unit by giving badly thought out mathhammer about the unit in a vacuum, then no one has any right to whine if I respond by giving an example of ANOTHER unit in a vacuum.
Marmatag wrote: Wouldn't you almost always use the acts of faith to get the extra movement? Getting Celestine into melee has to be like priority 1.
Guard players have repeatedly said it's a waste of orders to apply them to conscripts when you could apply the orders to a unit with superior firepower. But this gets ignored because OH MY FETHING GAWD WHAT DA FETH BARBEQUE, CONSCRIPTS OHPEEEEEEE!
If someone is going to complain about a unit by giving badly thought out mathhammer about the unit in a vacuum, then no one has any right to whine if I respond by giving an example of ANOTHER unit in a vacuum.
It can and can't be. About 40%-strength is when it becomes less viable to give the conscripts the Orders over the Guardsmen.
20 men getting 2 bonus shots each for 50 shots, 13 hits.
10 men getting 2 bonus shots each for 20 shots, 10 hits.
Now, for comparison:
20 Conscripts costs 60 points, or 3 PL 10 Guardsmen cost 40 points, or 3 PL 50 Conscripts cost 150 points, or 6 PL
The cost seems to account for the scaling of orders very well.
Melissia wrote: Guard players have repeatedly said it's a waste of orders to apply them to conscripts when you could apply the orders to a unit with superior firepower. But this gets ignored because OH MY FETHING GAWD WHAT DA FETH BARBEQUE, CONSCRIPTS OHPEEEEEEE!
Can you give an example of a unit which would benefit more from an order?
Melissia wrote: Guard players have repeatedly said it's a waste of orders to apply them to conscripts when you could apply the orders to a unit with superior firepower. But this gets ignored because OH MY FETHING GAWD WHAT DA FETH BARBEQUE, CONSCRIPTS OHPEEEEEEE!
Can you give an example of a unit which would benefit more from an order?
Mortars.
3d6 Shots, NLoS. Make them re-roll 1's to hit. while the enemy is far away, and since they're S4 they'll wound things a little better.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: Considering he's impossible to kill, every point spent on a sniper is, in my opinion, wasted. It would take something like 154 points of Ratlings to kill a Commissar in one turn. With 150 points, I can buy 2.5 squads of Dominions, and kill 15 more of them, approximately 5 fewer than I would have killed through Battleshock if the Commissar died. And, of course, if we bring 150 points of marksmen, they don't have anything left to do once the Commissar is dead, while 150 points of Dominions can keep shooting at other things. And if we bring less than 150 points of marksmen, we might as well not have them because our next round's shooting will kill the conscripts anyway,
Umm.... no. 10 ratlings (70 points) will generally kill a normal commissar in a single turn, even if we ignore mortal wounds entirely. 8 ratlings will do it on average with mortal wounds, but just barely, so might as well take a full unit (or two MSU, whatever). I'm not sure why you think it'd take 154 points to do it. Are we talking about a lord commissar? Did commissar's get a buff in the FAQ?
Melissia wrote: 141 points of Battle Sisters first use an Act of Faith at the start of the round to put out 24 boltgun shots within 12", and 12 storm bolter shots within 12" (they're rapid fire 2, so 4 shots each at half range, with three storm bolters in the squad). This is 36 boltgun shots. Then, during their shooting phase, they put out another 24 boltgun shots and 12 stormbolter shots. This results in a total of 72 boltgun shots-- exactly what I said they could do in a single turn.
Are you seriously trying to tell a veteran Sisters of Battle player how her army works? You don't know gak. Don't fething try to correct me about my own army when you don't even know gak all about your own.
Wow, considering you didn't even bother to mention you used an act of faith, pretty important considering we were comparing them to conscripts without orders and acts of faith aren't a guarantee still... Yeah, I assumed you weren't including the once per turn, not entirely reliable boost into the calculation, because it would be extremely unrepresentative of the comparison being made, which was what unit can field infantry (as in, multiple squads of infantry) better than conscripts. .
Melissia wrote: Guard players have repeatedly said it's a waste of orders to apply them to conscripts when you could apply the orders to a unit with superior firepower. But this gets ignored because OH MY FETHING GAWD WHAT DA FETH BARBEQUE, CONSCRIPTS OHPEEEEEEE!
Can you give an example of a unit which would benefit more from an order?
Mortars.
Which order specifically? I suppose that the mortars win by default at long range, but assuming that at least a sizable portion of the conscripts are in range it's more valuable to give them Rapid Fire 2 rather than reroll 1 to hit for 3 mortars.
SilverAlien wrote: Wow, considering you didn't even bother to mention you used an act of faith
I didn't have to; they're Sisters of Battle, it's what they do. You even got both the count of shots wrong AND the count of points wrong, too, even without Acts of Faith being taken in to account-- unlike me. Because I actually know what I'm talking about. You should try it some time.
Besides I don't want to listen to you complain about that when you're so often not even taking in to account the cost of units conscripts are being boosted by to begin with with your dishonest arguments.
Man, am I glad I just run Infantry squads so no one will lose their mind at me.
I don't think Conscripts are too powerful (when you look at things like Guilliman or some flyers), but I do think the removal of template weapons and change to armor saves has made them sturdier then maybe they should be.
Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that some weapons should inflict extra shots/hits on units larger than 20 models. I really like that idea and think it would work great even within the current ruleset.
3d6 Shots, NLoS. Make them re-roll 1's to hit. while the enemy is far away, and since they're S4 they'll wound things a little better.
Should I even bother showing that this sin't a better usage of an order, or will I just derisively mocked for using mathhammer? Eh, screw it, doing it anyways.
Mortar's rerolling 1's to hit on some unarmored t3 unit is 4.08 wounds, up from 3.5 wounds without rerolling 1s.
Conscripts of the same cost, which would be 9 conscripts, inflict 3-6 wounds depending on range, up from 1.5-3. Plus, you know, that single order is actually going to be effecting up to 50 conscripts, rather than the 12 I used for comparison.
So... no the order isn't a good comparison, conscripts are a much better target for orders, and kill a lot more infantry for cost once orders become a thing.
SilverAlien wrote: Wow, considering you didn't even bother to mention you used an act of faith
I didn't have to; they're Sisters of Battle, it's what they do. You even got both the count of shots wrong AND the count of points wrong, too, even without Acts of Faith being taken in to account-- unlike me. Because I actually know what I'm talking about. You should try it some time.
Besides I don't want to listen to you complain about that when you're so often not even taking in to account the cost of units conscripts are being boosted by to begin with with your dishonest arguments.
To the first point, I had no idea you meant a squad of sisters with a specific loadout you never specified, so i just did plain sisters of battle without upgrades (given that's what many mean when they say x points of y thing). When yhat didn't work, tried dominions cause someone mentioned them earlier and I though maybe that'd be closer, given the huge gap because I also didn't know you were talking about the once per turn act of faith.
Don't start cursing people out and getting angry because you were absurdly unclear.
Melissia wrote: Guard players have repeatedly said it's a waste of orders to apply them to conscripts when you could apply the orders to a unit with superior firepower. But this gets ignored because OH MY FETHING GAWD WHAT DA FETH BARBEQUE, CONSCRIPTS OHPEEEEEEE!
Can you give an example of a unit which would benefit more from an order?
Mortars.
Which order specifically? I suppose that the mortars win by default at long range, but assuming that at least a sizable portion of the conscripts are in range it's more valuable to give them Rapid Fire 2 rather than reroll 1 to hit for 3 mortars.
It take that back. Krak Missiles and Lascannons.
Getting your hits and wounds with those heavy weapons can be critical to crippling and wrecking transports in your opening turn, when Conscripts are at long Range.
Once the enemy is in close range, they're already in battle with your Conscripts, so if you have fewer than 20 Conscripts remaining you would rather order a regular rifle squad. But anyway, as I pointed out, the Conscript's cost accounts for the increased power of FRF-SRF on them:
10 Guardsmen get 9 bonus shots at long range, and 18 bonus shots at close range [stupid sergeants], totalling up to 4.5 or 9 bonus hits, and cost 40 points or 3 PL.
20 Conscripts get 20 bonus shots, or 40 bonus shots, totalling up to 6.5 bonus hits or 13 bonus hits, at cost of 60 points or 3 PL.
50 Conscripts get 50 bonus shots, or 100 bonus shots, totalling up to 16.5 bonus hits or 33 bonus hits, at cost of 150 points or 6 PL.
So for 150% of the cost, you get 150% the capability out of the order. For 375% the cost, you get 366% the effect of the order.
The only way I am seeing non-IG players having this resolved is buy removing conscripts from the IG codex. This has been a back and fourth, point vs. counter-point exercise in uselessness.
Conscripts didn't change at all in their tactics or usefulness from 7th to 8th ed. They were 3pts per man. They had a hidden commissar or lord commissar that could not be targeted unless it was by snipers. They always only lost 1 man for a failed leadership. They were Leadership 9 or 10 thanks to the commissar so they never failed a order. IG commanders would always run the Platoon Commander with them so the Company Commander could issue the actually useful orders to Platoons/Veterans. They were massive 50 wound tarpits/ walls.
So what did change from 7th to 8th that took them from being just OK in a un-competitive codex to one of the most broken units in the game? They get a armor save against some basic infantry weapons. They/other units can fall out of combat instead of being stuck in combat with them for 4+turns. They lost one attack on the charge and went from normally hitting on a 4+ to a 5+. They can hurt anything on a 6. FRFSRF gives a additional shot at 12 inches. They are not in a platoon.
Lets look at it from the IG players perspective. To them conscripts have not changed but the game changed around them. Ig players where hurt when their tanks went up in points but became less effective (We relied on template weapons to make up for bad BS, can't issue orders from a chimera, loss of shooting one weapon at full BS after moving). IG players lost their combined squads (orders are now only effective on veterans/ conscripts). Veterans lost doctrines and are not a troops choice (Lots of IG players ran veterans).
When you boil it all down it means that IG players will naturally gravitate to conscripts and artillery (which is just as effective and did not get nerfed). If you get rid of the conscripts you remove the overpowered FRFSRF (it becomes basically useless) and tone down the commissar a tiny bit. What does not change? 150 men with massive leadership buffs blocking you from coming close to his artillery.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: But anyway, as I pointed out, the Conscript's cost accounts for the increased power of FRF-SRF on them:
10 Guardsmen get 9 bonus shots at long range, and 18 bonus shots at close range [stupid sergeants], totalling up to 4.5 or 9 bonus hits, and cost 40 points or 3 PL.
20 Conscripts get 20 bonus shots, or 40 bonus shots, totalling up to 6.5 bonus hits or 13 bonus hits, at cost of 60 points or 3 PL.
50 Conscripts get 50 bonus shots, or 100 bonus shots, totalling up to 16.5 bonus hits or 33 bonus hits, at cost of 150 points or 6 PL.
So for 150% of the cost, you get 150% the capability out of the order. For 375% the cost, you get 366% the effect of the order.
There's not some sort of insane scaling here.
..... are you being deliberately obtuse or what? The cost break on using orders isn't for the conscripts/guard, it's for the 30 point company commander.
In the former, that 30 point upgrade is getting you 9-18 bonus hits between two units. For 20 person conscripts, the same 30 points gets you 13-26. For units of 50, you have a 33-66 extra lasgun shots, for 30 points.
Now, how many points of conscripts would it take to get an extra 33-66 lasgun shots? 300 points worth. Not the 30 the commander cost. How many points would it take to get the extra 9-18 for two guard squad? 80 if you buy more guardsman, 81 in conscripts.
So the force multiplier of company commander went from contributing a bit under 3 times his cost in lasgun shots to 10 times his cost in lasgun shots. That's what we mean when we say the scaling is insane. Look at the commander as a 30 point upgrade to two squads, not... whatever you were trying to do.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: Once the enemy is in close range, they're already in battle with your Conscripts, so if you have fewer than 20 Conscripts remaining you would rather order a regular rifle squad. But anyway, as I pointed out, the Conscript's cost accounts for the increased power of FRF-SRF on them:
10 Guardsmen get 9 bonus shots at long range, and 18 bonus shots at close range [stupid sergeants], totalling up to 4.5 or 9 bonus hits, and cost 40 points or 3 PL.
20 Conscripts get 20 bonus shots, or 40 bonus shots, totalling up to 6.5 bonus hits or 13 bonus hits, at cost of 60 points or 3 PL.
50 Conscripts get 50 bonus shots, or 100 bonus shots, totalling up to 16.5 bonus hits or 33 bonus hits, at cost of 150 points or 6 PL.
So for 150% of the cost, you get 150% the capability out of the order. For 375% the cost, you get 366% the effect of the order.
There's not some sort of insane scaling here.
The cost of the unit is irrelevant given that the overhead cost for the order is per unit. 1 order per turn costs 20 pts (or 15 with a company commander). Going by your numbers, the order will either give you 6.5 bonus hits with 20 conscripts or 4.5 bonus hits with guardsmen. Even if it definitely will be better to buff other units in the case where you only have 10 conscripts remaining that is not the typical case. A conscript unit is generally the best target for orders.
Howscat wrote: When you boil it all down it means that IG players will naturally gravitate to conscripts and artillery (which is just as effective and did not get nerfed). If you get rid of the conscripts you remove the overpowered FRFSRF (it becomes basically useless) and tone down the commissar a tiny bit. What does not change? 150 men with massive leadership buffs blocking you from coming close to his artillery.
What we want is a wall that, with dedicated anti infantry, can be removed as efficiently as any other infantry unit used for screening.This is not an unreasonable request. Normal guard squads are more balanced given for this than normal conscripts, as are conscripts with some nerfs. It's not that we think guard shouldn't have walls of guys screening, they should just pay a reasonable price for them, and they shouldn't be absurdly difficult for cost to remove compared to every other infantry unit. Currently, they are not balanced with the rest of the game or anti infantry options in general.
Howscat wrote: When you boil it all down it means that IG players will naturally gravitate to conscripts and artillery (which is just as effective and did not get nerfed). If you get rid of the conscripts you remove the overpowered FRFSRF (it becomes basically useless) and tone down the commissar a tiny bit. What does not change? 150 men with massive leadership buffs blocking you from coming close to his artillery.
What we want is a wall that, with dedicated anti infantry, can be removed as efficiently as any other infantry unit used for screening.This is not an unreasonable request. Normal guard squads are more balanced given for this than normal conscripts, as are conscripts with some nerfs. It's not that we think guard shouldn't have walls of guys screening, they should just pay a reasonable price for them, and they shouldn't be absurdly difficult for cost to remove compared to every other infantry unit. Currently, they are not balanced with the rest of the game or anti infantry options in general.
What other army requires a screening unit? Orks and tyranids just want to close the distance and catch you in close combat. Space marines all where heavy armor with good shooting and close combat. The flavors of space elves use speed and firepower to defeat the enemy. Tau use fast and tough battle suits to shoot you while being buffed from their smaller characters. Chaos has its god buffs and pshycic shinnanagins. The Guard have their men to screen for their tanks/artillery.
What I am saying that even if you went full on and removed conscript IG players will just switch to using regular guardsmen. No matter what you do you will still have to chew threw 150 men to get to the artillery that is killin your dudez. Even worse, You will fight through 150 men to be faced with 150 more men.
And that's okay to have a screening unit. Just pay the appropriate price for them, then. I'm not suggesting to gut the unit entry, but Conscripts and regular Guardsmen need to be bumped up a point each. That's more than fair since Orders are automatic and the characters are blasted cheap.
What other army requires a screening unit? Orks and tyranids just want to close the distance and catch you in close combat. Space marines all where heavy armor with good shooting and close combat. The flavors of space elves use speed and firepower to defeat the enemy. Tau use fast and tough battle suits to shoot you while being buffed from their smaller characters. Chaos has its god buffs and pshycic shinnanagins. The Guard have their men to screen for their tanks/artillery.
What I am saying that even if you went full on and removed conscript IG players will just switch to using regular guardsmen. No matter what you do you will still have to chew threw 150 men to get to the artillery that is killin your dudez. Even worse, You will fight through 150 men to be faced with 150 more men.
Almost every shooty army that isn't pure flyers wants screening units. Marines in particular are really vulnerable to their stuff getting tied up in CC because they have big trouble screening effectively without bringing in Guard. Eldar can either screen or go 100% mechanized, and basically every Eldar list gets better if you add in a unit or two of Razorwings. Tau screen with gun drones and Kroot and Fire Warriors. Chaos has Horrors, and almost every Chaos list gets better if you add some, even the ones that don't shoot much.
Conscripts are priced appropriately. Why should they pay the EXACT same price as guardsmen for less stats?
If any adjustment is to be made here, it's that they shouldn't benefit as strongly from commissars as normal guardsmen. But that's it. The people screaming and crying about how they're the most OP unit in the game right now have failed to actually make a good case as to why they are.
First, the most likely reason they got that point reduction (from 5 to 4) is the loss of combined squads, which does reduce their efficiency because they can no longer create a battery of 5 lascannons wrapped in 40 additional wounds.
Second, the reason Cultists cost 5 points still is most likely the fact that they can take both a mark of Chaos and a Legion keyword. Now, we've seen Chapter Tactics for the Space Marines. Chaos is likely to get something similar for Favors and Legion special rules. Cultists can get both, so when the Chaos codex drops, there's a good chance cultists will be able to pick up two potentially very powerful special rules for "free" (in quotes because they're technically already paying for it).
Granted, technically that's also just another way for GW to screw things up because some marks and some legions will probably be stronger than others.
Oh look someone going for a quick spin in the hyperbolic chamber again while running off in bad faith with a line someone said. No one said that Melissa.
Honestly I don't really see why Commissars are supposed to be the big problem here. When I play infantry-heavy Guard lists I often end up with like 14 CP and I struggle to find things to spend them on. I don't use Conscripts -- I think 60 point lascannon infantry squads are plenty durable and they force the enemy to come to me -- but if I did I don't know that Commissars would be mandatory. They're only 30 points so I'll take one, sure, but it doesn't seem like a big problem if they get significantly nerfed or if people start bringing tons of snipers. If my opponent kills 10 Conscripts I'll just pay 2 CP and ignore morale that turn. I can keep that up for a few turns, and that's all I need the Conscripts for. The ability to threaten FRFSRF if the enemy doesn't thin the herd and their use as screeners is what makes Conscripts appealing. Fearlessness is just a nice bonus that's probably worth 30 points but not much more. Commissars are a much bigger deal for regular infantry where, without them, the enemy could take a bunch of squads down low enough that the heavy weapon would be in danger from morale. Commissars mean that the enemy has a lot of reason to wipe out all but 1 model in each squad, and this often leads to overkill, wasted shots, and fewer models lost to morale (because there are no models to lose).
Better snipers mean that I'm more likely to bring Conscripts over infantry, because I can hide the officer and maybe Commissar more effectively while still buffing a ton of dudes.
Edit: Granted, maybe I won't be as willing to throw CP away after the Marine codex comes out if I can ally in a single Marine unit and then use orbital bombardments every turn.
Quickjager wrote: Oh look someone going for a quick spin in the hyperbolic chamber again while running off in bad faith with a line someone said. No one said that Melissa.
Howscat wrote: What if every army got their snipers boosted/ given access to snipers?
IDK. Marine scout snipers can put on average two or three wounds on a commissar in a single turn for 75 pts, and most marine armies get access to them. Hell, I know my army's going to have 14 sniper rifles in it (the 15th is going to be an ML to help with anti-tank, with five that have basic boltguns as objective-sitters)-- and I don't even necessarily have the army kitted out for sniping for htat purpose. 90 points if you want to give them camo cloaks. Scout Snipers are, IMO, almost perfectly priced.
Eldar rangers probably pay far too much for the ability to deep strike and the ability to get a bonus cover save-- they cost more than scout snipers, but aren't as tough. But they do get the ability to move and fire, unlike scouts, to make up for it?
ross-128 wrote: A couple things to note about standard guardsmen:
First, the most likely reason they got that point reduction (from 5 to 4) is the loss of combined squads, which does reduce their efficiency because they can no longer create a battery of 5 lascannons wrapped in 40 additional wounds.
Second, the reason Cultists cost 5 points still is most likely the fact that they can take both a mark of Chaos and a Legion keyword. Now, we've seen Chapter Tactics for the Space Marines. Chaos is likely to get something similar for Favors and Legion special rules. Cultists can get both, so when the Chaos codex drops, there's a good chance cultists will be able to pick up two potentially very powerful special rules for "free" (in quotes because they're technically already paying for it).
Granted, technically that's also just another way for GW to screw things up because some marks and some legions will probably be stronger than others.
Marks don't do anything right now, and Legion keyword (which IS going to prevent different Legions from taking Marks) is no different than getting a Regiment keyword.
Howscat wrote: What if every army got their snipers boosted/ given access to snipers?
IDK. Marine scout snipers can put on average two or three wounds on a commissar in a single turn for 75 pts, and most marine armies get access to them. Hell, I know my army's going to have 14 sniper rifles in it (the 15th is going to be an ML to help with anti-tank, with five that have basic boltguns as objective-sitters)-- and I don't even necessarily have the army kitted out for sniping for htat purpose. 90 points if you want to give them camo cloaks. Scout Snipers are, IMO, almost perfectly priced.
Eldar rangers probably pay far too much for the ability to deep strike and the ability to get a bonus cover save-- they cost more than scout snipers, but aren't as tough. But they do get the ability to move and fire, unlike scouts, to make up for it?
SilverAlien wrote: if conscripts cost four points, well he'd have a point. Because then the cost would actually be reasonable. But not right now.
And I'm not the only one objecting to it either.
Arandmoor wrote: Yeah. 4 point conscripts would solve the "conscript problem" because 4 points is too much per model when compared to normal guard infantry to justify taking them at all!
The fact that you actually asked that question is hilarious beyond belief. Do you play 40k via graph paper or something?
I'm glad you find it hilarious, as that was my goal. My post was in support of yours, though using what I intended to be the understated sarcasm that is the way of my people
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sossen wrote: Having looked at the ETC lists there appear to be at least 10 AM players bringing at least 100 conscripts. One guy is bringing 400. There are almost no AM lists without any conscripts, and the majority bring 100+. Stormraven spam is the game of the day though.
Howscat wrote: What other army requires a screening unit? Orks and tyranids just want to close the distance and catch you in close combat. Space marines all where heavy armor with good shooting and close combat. The flavors of space elves use speed and firepower to defeat the enemy. Tau use fast and tough battle suits to shoot you while being buffed from their smaller characters. Chaos has its god buffs and pshycic shinnanagins. The Guard have their men to screen for their tanks/artillery.
What I am saying that even if you went full on and removed conscript IG players will just switch to using regular guardsmen. No matter what you do you will still have to chew threw 150 men to get to the artillery that is killin your dudez. Even worse, You will fight through 150 men to be faced with 150 more men.
So you actually and honestly believe only guard wants to screens its tanks and big guns? You don't think any other army routinely fields large numbers of tanks or immobile artillery?
Ork artillery is a main stay of the army, as it is for renegades and heretics. Tau want to screen broadsides, riptides, and stormsurges. Plenty of people run tank heavy space marine varieties. Even chaos marines have a few, though most of artillery also has close combat weapons. Even eldar can benefit from being able to screen their big stuff, even if it is more mobile generally.
Melissia wrote: Conscripts are priced appropriately. Why should they pay the EXACT same price as guardsmen for less stats?
If any adjustment is to be made here, it's that they shouldn't benefit as strongly from commissars as normal guardsmen. But that's it. The people screaming and crying about how they're the most OP unit in the game right now have failed to actually make a good case as to why they are.
You mean beyond pointing out that no other infantry unit is as tough per point, and the few that come close have much worse firepower, particularly when we factor in how cheaply they can literally double it, a 30 point upgrade to double two 50 person conscript units damage output is excellently priced?
Conscripts have no unit of the same cost that works anywhere near as well. Units that cost 1-2 points more than they do generally have worse stats.
As for normal guard squads, a question. Is it an advantage worth paying for to be taken in larger squad sizes? Is having a max unit size of 30 an advantage over a max unit size of 10?
If no, then there is no reason a normal guardsman should cost as much as a termagaunt and less than a cultist, given they are superior to both units. In which case, conscripts at 4, infantry at 5.
If yes, large unit size can be an advantage due to how auras and buffs works, then conscripts can be priced the same as normal guard troops as the large unit size is the advantage. In that case, both at 4.
I lean towards the latter myself, but I'd be glad to hear others.
ross-128 wrote: A couple things to note about standard guardsmen:
First, the most likely reason they got that point reduction (from 5 to 4) is the loss of combined squads, which does reduce their efficiency because they can no longer create a battery of 5 lascannons wrapped in 40 additional wounds.
Second, the reason Cultists cost 5 points still is most likely the fact that they can take both a mark of Chaos and a Legion keyword. Now, we've seen Chapter Tactics for the Space Marines. Chaos is likely to get something similar for Favors and Legion special rules. Cultists can get both, so when the Chaos codex drops, there's a good chance cultists will be able to pick up two potentially very powerful special rules for "free" (in quotes because they're technically already paying for it).
Granted, technically that's also just another way for GW to screw things up because some marks and some legions will probably be stronger than others.
Marks don't do anything right now, and Legion keyword (which IS going to prevent different Legions from taking Marks) is no different than getting a Regiment keyword.
Well, the same is true of the Chapter keyword... until the Space Marine codex drops. Then your Chapter keyword might translate into shooting attacks getting -1 to hit you, a 6+FNP, the ability to ignore cover, etc. Granted, one of those things is not like the others.
If cultists can pick up something like that, that would explain a lot wouldn't it?
Edit:
Also, the value of large squad sizes depends on what those squads are made of. I pointed out the ability to wrap 5 heavy weapons in wounds for a reason: Conscripts can't do that, because they can't take heavy weapons. Order efficiency is a factor, but with the Conscripts' much lower statline and limited weapon options, it's not enough by itself to justify costing as much as Guardsmen.
If I could take up to 5 heavy weapon teams in a Conscript squad and those heavy weapon teams had BS4+, then I'd consider paying 4 points per model for them.
SilverAlien wrote: You mean beyond pointing out that no other infantry unit is as tough per point
And? That's the entire reason you get them. THey don't really serve any other purpose.
Hell, I know you're terrible at both math AND remembering t hings, but I already proved in a different thread that equivalent points of tactical marines actually outpace conscripts in damaging MEQ, are you going to start spamming endlessly about how tacticals are OH SO DAMN OVERPOWERED in 50 different threads just like you did with conscripts?
Thing is, conscripts do one thing and only one thing well. And that's take damage. That's it. Hell, 100 conscripts each being given an order to FRFSRF can barely even, on average, take down a single tactical squad in cover. And they cost five and a half times more than said tacticals.
And I'm supposed to be intimidated by this? I'd quote the eternal sage known as Snoop Dogg, but I'm pretty sure the mods wouldn't like it. That said, I'm not going to cower at such pitiful firepower. I can think of plenty of other things that can kill a marine squad in cover for 360 points. And if you can't, that's because you're not very good at this game.
ross-128 wrote: Well, the same is true of the Chapter keyword... until the Space Marine codex drops. Then your Chapter keyword might translate into shooting attacks getting -1 to hit you, a 6+FNP, the ability to ignore cover, etc. Granted, one of those things is not like the others.
If cultists can pick up something like that, that would explain a lot wouldn't it?
Except conscripts will get that as well? Unless conscripts and guard infantry don't benefit from the (confirmed) regimental tactics thing that will come. I mean, they could've costed one including it and one ignoring it but that'd still be a balance issue in and of itself.
SilverAlien wrote: if conscripts cost four points, well he'd have a point. Because then the cost would actually be reasonable. But not right now.
And I'm not the only one objecting to it either.
Arandmoor wrote: Yeah. 4 point conscripts would solve the "conscript problem" because 4 points is too much per model when compared to normal guard infantry to justify taking them at all!
I just went through his whole first 3 pages of his post history, where is that from. Nothing is like it, because in every mention of 4ppm he is saying guardsmen themselves should be 5ppm OR he is saying conscripts for 3ppm get better Stat efficency than 4ppm.
SilverAlien wrote: You mean beyond pointing out that no other infantry unit is as tough per point
And? That's the entire reason you get them. THey don't really serve any other purpose.
Hell, I know you're terrible at both math AND remembering t hings, but I already proved in a different thread that equivalent points of tactical marines actually outpace conscripts in damaging MEQ, are you going to start spamming endlessly about how tacticals are OH SO DAMN OVERPOWERED in 50 different threads just like you did with conscripts?
Thing is, conscripts do one thing and only one thing well. And that's take damage. That's it. Hell, 100 conscripts each being given an order to FRFSRF can barely even, on average, take down a single tactical squad in cover. And they cost five and a half times more than said tacticals.
And I'm supposed to be intimidated by this? To quote the eternal sage known as Snoop Dogg, bitch, please. I'm not going to cower at such pitiful firepower. I can think of plenty of other things that can kill a marine squad in cover for 360 points.
I've yet to have any math wrong that anyone has pointed out, unless again you count me not being able to read your mind to determine unit composition a math error...
Would you also like to share the unit composition you used? Because barebones tacticals won't beat barebone conscripts, and I'm curious what 170 point build you have that outdamages them and their platoon commander, once we start looking at upgrades, plasma of some sort I assume?
Quickjager wrote: Wait that quote was in context of his centurion post wasn't it. That is so out of context.
Actually I have said that, with my logic being as follows:
Termagaunts (or renegades and heretic infantry) are 4 points, and conscripts outperform termagaunts overall. At 4 points the two would be better balanced, with conscripts still slightly better overall.
We then notice normal guardsman at even better than termagaunts at 4 points, and superior to cultists despite costing 4 compared to 5. At 5 points, guardsman would still be better than cultists.
However, someone made the point that being able to be taken in a larger unit size made those units more valuable, due to how auras and buffs worked. I conceded this was a valid point, and it could make sense that termagaunts/cultists pay extra for this ability, in which case conscripts costing the same as normal guardsmen would also make sense.
Apparently, this has been met with a great deal of anger.
ross-128 wrote: A couple things to note about standard guardsmen:
First, the most likely reason they got that point reduction (from 5 to 4) is the loss of combined squads, which does reduce their efficiency because they can no longer create a battery of 5 lascannons wrapped in 40 additional wounds.
Second, the reason Cultists cost 5 points still is most likely the fact that they can take both a mark of Chaos and a Legion keyword. Now, we've seen Chapter Tactics for the Space Marines. Chaos is likely to get something similar for Favors and Legion special rules. Cultists can get both, so when the Chaos codex drops, there's a good chance cultists will be able to pick up two potentially very powerful special rules for "free" (in quotes because they're technically already paying for it).
Granted, technically that's also just another way for GW to screw things up because some marks and some legions will probably be stronger than others.
Marks don't do anything right now, and Legion keyword (which IS going to prevent different Legions from taking Marks) is no different than getting a Regiment keyword.
Well, the same is true of the Chapter keyword... until the Space Marine codex drops. Then your Chapter keyword might translate into shooting attacks getting -1 to hit you, a 6+FNP, the ability to ignore cover, etc. Granted, one of those things is not like the others.
If cultists can pick up something like that, that would explain a lot wouldn't it?
Edit:
Also, the value of large squad sizes depends on what those squads are made of. I pointed out the ability to wrap 5 heavy weapons in wounds for a reason: Conscripts can't do that, because they can't take heavy weapons. Order efficiency is a factor, but with the Conscripts' much lower statline and limited weapon options, it's not enough by itself to justify costing as much as Guardsmen.
If I could take up to 5 heavy weapon teams in a Conscript squad and those heavy weapon teams had BS4+, then I'd consider paying 4 points per model for them.
Well Cultists probably will get the Legion keyword but most likely no bonuses from it except in specific circumstances (Alpha Legion). I kinda see that happening because there's no reason to give them Disgustingly Resilient when we have Pox Walkers.
Let me put it this way: Any army that can spam out large numbers of cheap infantry will always be hard to kill. If your army is struggling to kill 150 properly buffed conscripts, your army will still struggle to kill 150 well equipped and buffed guardsman. They will also struggle to kill mass small tyrinid bug spam, cultist spam, and ork boys spam. All of these units are capable of screening and receiving massive buffs.
Don't worry. I am sure that Conscripts, Manticors, and Scion plasma will be nerfed (I am planing on it). However, that does not change the fact that in 8th edition almost everyone's basic infantry unit got cheaper while everything else got more expensive. If I were you I would start taking more infantry and anti infantry weapons with less anti tank/monster.
If you're having such a problem with hordes then being anti-horde kit. You're a Space Muhreen player right? Not as if you don't have a tool for every situation spoonfed to you anyway. Yeah, hordes may suck to fight against when you're bringing an All-Comerslist but if you know what you're going to be up against... well, plan accordingly. 
