What justifies AM meltas/plasmas to be cheaper? They're the same profiles, and the points for platforms which they come on are adjusted accordingly.

Hitting on 4s,

So you honestly think a weapon should cost the same for a marine and a guardsman? Wtf.

Its easier to kill the guardsmen.....

The platform (guardsmen vs marine) are costed accordingly, 4 PPM to 13 PPM, to their given statlines.
The special weapons are the same statline.

Why does AM benefit twice, once for paying less PPM for being less durable/less accurate, and then another for the weapon that does the same thing?

Because Guard has to be the best at everything this edition, can't have them paying the same price as everyone else. /s

Honestly I don't know. It makes sense that a bad bs can't benefit from a weapon as much as a better shooter, but why does this only apply to Guard? They seem to be double dipping on all sides (regiments apply to everything, most CP, great statagems, great relics, great psykers & abilities, biggest flexibility on units and tactics and free orders on top of it).

Cruddace wrote the Codex and was one of the Leads on the edition, that is why they are cheaper than they should be on AM than other armies. That said the platform is very different and that is why having a single points cost for weapons is absurd.

how does one accurately points a autocannon that may be on a T3 BS4+ W2 save 5+ heavy weapons team AND still have it accurate for a T6 BS4+ W6 save 3+ Armored Sentinel, while at the same time balancing out the affect of a swap to lascannons on the same unit.And this is two weapons in two units of the same Codex. Honestly I am hoping we see a return in 9th to weapons getting different costs on different platforms.

 G00fySmiley wrote:
Cruddace wrote the Codex and was one of the Leads on the edition, that is why they are cheaper than they should be on AM than other armies. That said the platform is very different and that is why having a single points cost for weapons is absurd.

But wasn't Cruddace's first army DA? Talkabout bandwagoning.

EDIT.

Nevermind.

BS 4+ is probably the best answer. Guardsmen are too inexpensive at 4 ppm, and Tacticals are too expensive at 13 PPM, but a plasma or a melta is not as good on a Guardsman as on a Space Marine.

To those saying its because Guardsmen are less durable than Marines and therefore shouldn't have to pay as much for weapons, wasn't that the entire reasoning behind splitting up points costs the way they did? The stat line and special rules of a unit are priced accordingly within the cost of the base model, then the weapons and wargear are separately priced based on their stat lines and special rules. So a Marine being more durable and more accurate than a Guardsman is reflected in the base cost of the Marine or Guardsman, while the special weapon (let's say a Plasma Gun) is priced according to the stat line of the weapon itself. Doesn't having the weapon be cheaper for Guardsmen because Guardsmen are less durable and less accurate than Marines when Guardsmen is already cheaper pointswise to accommodate for the fact that Guardsmen is less durable and less accurate than Marines defeat the purpose of splitting the points costs in the first place?

 G00fySmiley wrote:
Cruddace wrote the Codex and was one of the Leads on the edition, that is why they are cheaper than they should be on AM than other armies. That said the platform is very different and that is why having a single points cost for weapons is absurd.

Cruddace is also responsible for the previous two trash codices for Guard...so now all of a sudden he's writing good stuff?

Also, Guard don't have a single points cost for all weapons. Melta and Plasma both have two points costs. Do you think every thing else needs the same? Because if you do, then I want two points costs for Plasma Pistols in Marine books, I want two points costs for Boltguns, I want two points costs for every other flipping book out there when there's an option that can be taken on an HQ or a normal option and there is a BS or WS difference.

I also want Guard characters to be given every single option that the basic Guardsman has access to. Because we don't get that otherwise. We can't give our Sergeants or Officers a Lasgun, we can't give them Combi-Weapons, we can't give them anything super special outside of Relics.

how does one accurately points a autocannon that may be on a T3 BS4+ W2 save 5+ heavy weapons team AND still have it accurate for a T6 BS4+ W6 save 3+ Armored Sentinel, while at the same time balancing out the affect of a swap to lascannons on the same unit.And this is two weapons in two units of the same Codex. Honestly I am hoping we see a return in 9th to weapons getting different costs on different platforms.

The points are based on the BS of an item.

The Sentinel being more durable doesn't mean jack when it's still hitting on a 4+.

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
To those saying its because Guardsmen are less durable than Marines and therefore shouldn't have to pay as much for weapons, wasn't that the entire reasoning behind splitting up points costs the way they did? The stat line and special rules of a unit are priced accordingly within the cost of the base model, then the weapons and wargear are separately priced based on their stat lines and special rules. So a Marine being more durable and more accurate than a Guardsman is reflected in the base cost of the Marine or Guardsman, while the special weapon (let's say a Plasma Gun) is priced according to the stat line of the weapon itself. Doesn't having the weapon be cheaper for Guardsmen because Guardsmen are less durable and less accurate than Marines when Guardsmen is already cheaper pointswise to accommodate for the fact that Guardsmen is less durable and less accurate than Marines defeat the purpose of splitting the points costs in the first place?

That fails flat when a unit can have many weapons and that weapon can be used for many different units in the same Codex.

A plasma can be balanced at one point cost for one unit and totally unbalanced for other unit in the same codex, but if you put the cost of that advantage in the body, then maybe the body will be overpriced if you use another different weapon.

Weapons should have different cost, based in the utility of that weapon in the individual unit can is carryng it. So not how it was done before, not how it is now.
A plasma gun should have a different cost for a guardsmen, a veteran, a Tempestus Scion, a Marine, a Sternguard, a Crisis Suit, etc...

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
To those saying its because Guardsmen are less durable than Marines and therefore shouldn't have to pay as much for weapons, wasn't that the entire reasoning behind splitting up points costs the way they did? The stat line and special rules of a unit are priced accordingly within the cost of the base model, then the weapons and wargear are separately priced based on their stat lines and special rules. So a Marine being more durable and more accurate than a Guardsman is reflected in the base cost of the Marine or Guardsman, while the special weapon (let's say a Plasma Gun) is priced according to the stat line of the weapon itself. Doesn't having the weapon be cheaper for Guardsmen because Guardsmen are less durable and less accurate than Marines when Guardsmen is already cheaper pointswise to accommodate for the fact that Guardsmen is less durable and less accurate than Marines defeat the purpose of splitting the points costs in the first place?

No. Because it doesn't take into account the compositions of squads or access to items for the leaders of a squad.

Try to outfit a Guard Command Squad or Scion Command Squad(the closest equivalents to a Sternguard Squad) with all Plasma weapons. You can't legally do it, aside from throwing a pistol onto the Sergeant/Tempestor.

A Sternguard Squad can have everyone rocking a Plasma Gun(the Sergeant has to rock a Combi-Plasma, but since they're not 1 use only anymore...) and benefiting from perks associated with it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:

A plasma gun should have a different cost for a guardsmen, a veteran, a Tempestus Scion, a Marine, a Sternguard, a Crisis Suit, etc...

Crisis Suits aren't part of this conversation. Their Plasma Rifle is different and should be priced differently to begin with.

Ok? Flamers then, that can be used by many armies for many different factions and not all imperials. But please Kanluwen don't drag another thread on one of your personal crusades (In this case sargeants not being able to use lasguns)

 skchsan wrote:
The platform (guardsmen vs marine) are costed accordingly, 4 PPM to 13 PPM, to their given statlines.
The special weapons are the same statline.

Why does AM benefit twice, once for paying less PPM for being less durable/less accurate, and then another for the weapon that does the same thing?

because these things compound each other, they dont exist in isolation.

The guardsmen is 4pts with a lasgun, a plasma gun isnt worth 13pts (more than triple the initial platform cost) on a BS4+ T5 5+sv Ld6 guardsmen, the platform (the guardsmen) isnt able to take advantage of the weapon as well as a Space Marine is. That goes beyond just the platform, but applies to the weapon as well.

We can show this mathematically.

4 guardsmen (16pts) with lasguns at 12" are killing 0.88 Space Marines in a turn, or 0.055 wounds a turn per point

1 Guardsmen with a Plasmagun will kill 0.694 (assuming overcharge) or 0.56 (assuming no overcharge). If we split the difference, that's 0.625 wounds.
If we cost a Plasma gun at 7pts, an 11pt guardsmen is turning out 0.057 wounds a turn per point, almost identical to the lasgun equipped guardsmen. This makes it a balanced, considered choice.

If we cost the PG at 13pts however, like Space Marines, then the Plasma Guardsman, at 17pts, is only doing 0.037 wounds per point per turn, dramatically worse than the lasgun guardsmen, 35% drop in cost effectiveness, youre better off just taking more lasguns, the plasma gun becomes an objectively inferior choice to more dudes.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
To those saying its because Guardsmen are less durable than Marines and therefore shouldn't have to pay as much for weapons, wasn't that the entire reasoning behind splitting up points costs the way they did? The stat line and special rules of a unit are priced accordingly within the cost of the base model, then the weapons and wargear are separately priced based on their stat lines and special rules. So a Marine being more durable and more accurate than a Guardsman is reflected in the base cost of the Marine or Guardsman, while the special weapon (let's say a Plasma Gun) is priced according to the stat line of the weapon itself. Doesn't having the weapon be cheaper for Guardsmen because Guardsmen are less durable and less accurate than Marines when Guardsmen is already cheaper pointswise to accommodate for the fact that Guardsmen is less durable and less accurate than Marines defeat the purpose of splitting the points costs in the first place?

No. Because it doesn't take into account the compositions of squads or access to items for the leaders of a squad.

Try to outfit a Guard Command Squad or Scion Command Squad(the closest equivalents to a Sternguard Squad) with all Plasma weapons. You can't legally do it, aside from throwing a pistol onto the Sergeant/Tempestor.

A Sternguard Squad can have everyone rocking a Plasma Gun(the Sergeant has to rock a Combi-Plasma, but since they're not 1 use only anymore...) and benefiting from perks associated with it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:

A plasma gun should have a different cost for a guardsmen, a veteran, a Tempestus Scion, a Marine, a Sternguard, a Crisis Suit, etc...

Crisis Suits aren't part of this conversation. Their Plasma Rifle is different and should be priced differently to begin with.

p

Officers are no longer part of a command squad. Plasma only command squads are completely legal current edition. They were such a problem that gw made an errata addressing their quantity.

Lower to hit.

They have lower strengh, worse Armour and less wounds.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
Cruddace wrote the Codex and was one of the Leads on the edition, that is why they are cheaper than they should be on AM than other armies. That said the platform is very different and that is why having a single points cost for weapons is absurd.

Cruddace is also responsible for the previous two trash codices for Guard...so now all of a sudden he's writing good stuff?

Also, Guard don't have a single points cost for all weapons. Melta and Plasma both have two points costs. Do you think every thing else needs the same? Because if you do, then I want two points costs for Plasma Pistols in Marine books, I want two points costs for Boltguns, I want two points costs for every other flipping book out there when there's an option that can be taken on an HQ or a normal option and there is a BS or WS difference.

I also want Guard characters to be given every single option that the basic Guardsman has access to. Because we don't get that otherwise. We can't give our Sergeants or Officers a Lasgun, we can't give them Combi-Weapons, we can't give them anything super special outside of Relics.

how does one accurately points a autocannon that may be on a T3 BS4+ W2 save 5+ heavy weapons team AND still have it accurate for a T6 BS4+ W6 save 3+ Armored Sentinel, while at the same time balancing out the affect of a swap to lascannons on the same unit.And this is two weapons in two units of the same Codex. Honestly I am hoping we see a return in 9th to weapons getting different costs on different platforms.

The points are based on the BS of an item.

The Sentinel being more durable doesn't mean jack when it's still hitting on a 4+.

Guard did not have a bad codex in 5th, 6th or 7th. I would agree that they were not always in the top tier army but they were usually solidly mid tier. I like the Guard as an army, but this edition their stuff just went too cheap for other armies to compete as a whole. I can have a fun game vs guard with my elder, my space marines have a noticeable power difference but it is not insurmountable, but my Tau and Orks are not even in the same League as guard currently.

I also disagree on the saying the 4+ is all that matters. read the whole thing. if they could ONLY take Autocannons then sure I could say the points could be addressed properly. but add in the other weapons and it is neigh impossible to balance. That was also meant as a criticism to the entire edition not just the imperial guard. how do you balance a bright lance on a weapons platform with a much more durable wraithlord when the wraithlord may also choose to use 3-4 other heavy weapons or forgo any heavy weapons and just go melee with a sword. I think the older unit entry method of assigning a points cost to a model was a better way of doing things.

Guard had no 7E codex, they got a late 6E codex that was pretty bad, it was a slightly rejiggered 5E codex with a ton of units and charactets cut, and attempted to belatedly rebalance their 5E performance....just before 7E, where, while not dead last, struggled to even be mid tier at best, and even for the last big of 6E they weren't particularly good nor even considered solidly mid-tier.

Hmmm, plasma guns and melta guns seem to have two costs in the guard codex, one for BS4+ models and one for BS3+ models that is the same as the cost other BS3+ factions get.

I wonder why Guard have lower costs.

HMMMMMMMM.

Probably the cruddace conspiracy idea, i think that's the most logical theory here.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Guard did not have a bad codex in 5th, 6th or 7th. I would agree that they were not always in the top tier army but they were usually solidly mid tier. I like the Guard as an army, but this edition their stuff just went too cheap for other armies to compete as a whole. I can have a fun game vs guard with my elder, my space marines have a noticeable power difference but it is not insurmountable, but my Tau and Orks are not even in the same League as guard currently.

This is absolute garbageposting at its finest.

Guard, as mentioned, didn't have a 7th edition Codex. When we finally got something in 7E(the Cadian Detachment) our requirements were patently absurd.
And really? Guard didn't have a "bad codex in 5th or 6th"? Did you try playing anything other than netlisting+allies?

Because yeah, it was pretty bad.

I also disagree on the saying the 4+ is all that matters. read the whole thing. if they could ONLY take Autocannons then sure I could say the points could be addressed properly. but add in the other weapons and it is neigh impossible to balance. That was also meant as a criticism to the entire edition not just the imperial guard. how do you balance a bright lance on a weapons platform with a much more durable wraithlord when the wraithlord may also choose to use 3-4 other heavy weapons or forgo any heavy weapons and just go melee with a sword. I think the older unit entry method of assigning a points cost to a model was a better way of doing things.

"Waaah, I don't like it so it's impossible to balance".

That, quite frankly, is all I'm getting from your posts. You've contributed nothing beyond complaining about Guard--welcome to 8th edition. Guard have their time in the sun right now.

Get a helmet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
Ok? Flamers then, that can be used by many armies for many different factions and not all imperials.

Even this doesn't work since flamers for some armies operate differently than others.

But please Kanluwen don't drag another thread on one of your personal crusades (In this case sargeants not being able to use lasguns)

I made a mention of it. You're not a moderator. You don't get to tell me what I can or cannot discuss.

The point of that mention, since it seems to have escaped your wonderful insight, is to highlight the fact that currently Guard are the only faction where the leader of a squad is unable to be equipped the same as the rest of the squad and thus cannot benefit from the same perks as them.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 argonak wrote:

Officers are no longer part of a command squad. Plasma only command squads are completely legal current edition. They were such a problem that gw made an errata addressing their quantity.

You're correct.

I was initially going to compare them to Veteran and Scion Squads but forgot that Command Squads no longer are 5 mans.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
Cruddace wrote the Codex and was one of the Leads on the edition, that is why they are cheaper than they should be on AM than other armies. That said the platform is very different and that is why having a single points cost for weapons is absurd.

Cruddace is also responsible for the previous two trash codices for Guard...so now all of a sudden he's writing good stuff?

Also, Guard don't have a single points cost for all weapons. Melta and Plasma both have two points costs. Do you think every thing else needs the same? Because if you do, then I want two points costs for Plasma Pistols in Marine books, I want two points costs for Boltguns, I want two points costs for every other flipping book out there when there's an option that can be taken on an HQ or a normal option and there is a BS or WS difference.

I also want Guard characters to be given every single option that the basic Guardsman has access to. Because we don't get that otherwise. We can't give our Sergeants or Officers a Lasgun, we can't give them Combi-Weapons, we can't give them anything super special outside of Relics.

how does one accurately points a autocannon that may be on a T3 BS4+ W2 save 5+ heavy weapons team AND still have it accurate for a T6 BS4+ W6 save 3+ Armored Sentinel, while at the same time balancing out the affect of a swap to lascannons on the same unit.And this is two weapons in two units of the same Codex. Honestly I am hoping we see a return in 9th to weapons getting different costs on different platforms.

The points are based on the BS of an item.

The Sentinel being more durable doesn't mean jack when it's still hitting on a 4+.

Guard did not have a bad codex in 5th, 6th or 7th. I would agree that they were not always in the top tier army but they were usually solidly mid tier. I like the Guard as an army, but this edition their stuff just went too cheap for other armies to compete as a whole. I can have a fun game vs guard with my elder, my space marines have a noticeable power difference but it is not insurmountable, but my Tau and Orks are not even in the same League as guard currently.

I also disagree on the saying the 4+ is all that matters. read the whole thing. if they could ONLY take Autocannons then sure I could say the points could be addressed properly. but add in the other weapons and it is neigh impossible to balance. That was also meant as a criticism to the entire edition not just the imperial guard. how do you balance a bright lance on a weapons platform with a much more durable wraithlord when the wraithlord may also choose to use 3-4 other heavy weapons or forgo any heavy weapons and just go melee with a sword. I think the older unit entry method of assigning a points cost to a model was a better way of doing things.

The old 6th codex really wasn't that great - which is actually part of the problem coming into 8th. A lot of the complete garbage got buffed, and but then nobody looked and saw that the core rules on their own gave guard a big nudge. Ie: Conscripts before getting nerfed....3? 4? times - exactly the same as in 6/7th, but due to the fact that every single weapon in the game barring shootas and lasguns no longer ignored their armor, they gained a ton of staying power.

He, I swear remember hearing last edition the question of "why are guard paying the same points for stuff as space marines. The idea is that an individual guardsman hits on a 4+, so the weapon is less valuable on them than on a 3+ model. This can be seen by the fact that within the codex itself, 3+ units pay extra for the guns. Plasma is 7/13, Melta is 12/17 (I still think these values should be swapped).

Would it be better to balance if each individual unit had its own cost for each weapon? Definitely! It would probably mean that Veterans would become useful again as they won't be saddled with Scion's sins. GW is probably not going to do this for a long while though, if at all.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
The platform (guardsmen vs marine) are costed accordingly, 4 PPM to 13 PPM, to their given statlines.
The special weapons are the same statline.

Why does AM benefit twice, once for paying less PPM for being less durable/less accurate, and then another for the weapon that does the same thing?

because these things compound each other, they dont exist in isolation.

The guardsmen is 4pts with a lasgun, a plasma gun isnt worth 13pts (more than triple the initial platform cost) on a BS4+ T5 5+sv Ld6 guardsmen, the platform (the guardsmen) isnt able to take advantage of the weapon as well as a Space Marine is. That goes beyond just the platform, but applies to the weapon as well.

We can show this mathematically.

4 guardsmen (16pts) with lasguns at 12" are killing 0.88 Space Marines in a turn, or 0.055 wounds a turn per point

1 Guardsmen with a Plasmagun will kill 0.694 (assuming overcharge) or 0.56 (assuming no overcharge). If we split the difference, that's 0.625 wounds.
If we cost a Plasma gun at 7pts, an 11pt guardsmen is turning out 0.057 wounds a turn per point, almost identical to the lasgun equipped guardsmen. This makes it a balanced, considered choice.

If we cost the PG at 13pts however, like Space Marines, then the Plasma Guardsman, at 17pts, is only doing 0.037 wounds per point per turn, dramatically worse than the lasgun guardsmen, 35% drop in cost effectiveness, youre better off just taking more lasguns, the plasma gun becomes an objectively inferior choice to more dudes.

That calculation does not make sense. If you have two full guardsmen squads one with all lasguns and one that has plasmagun the squad with Plasma is better. So you get benefit from that plasma upgrade ofc its more expensive but it's up to you if you want to pay for it or not. Allso you cant mix the platform efectivy in to this as it's all ready componsated on the platform cost.

Allso if special weapons have to have different prices on different factions it should be opposite to what it is now. For example if you think real life military elite forces they have larger and better selection of different weaponry than normal infantry. It should be same in 40k. So if anything spacemarines and maybe some elite IG units should definiatly have cheaper special weapons than puny guardsmen. Just think about it why would imperium produce more special weapons (lower cost) for standard line infantry than they do for their elite forces? This does not make any sense. Guns should stay at same cost at least for all the imperium and if there has to be different prices guns should be cheaper for elite forces.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Guard did not have a bad codex in 5th, 6th or 7th. I would agree that they were not always in the top tier army but they were usually solidly mid tier. I like the Guard as an army, but this edition their stuff just went too cheap for other armies to compete as a whole. I can have a fun game vs guard with my elder, my space marines have a noticeable power difference but it is not insurmountable, but my Tau and Orks are not even in the same League as guard currently.

I also disagree on the saying the 4+ is all that matters. read the whole thing. if they could ONLY take Autocannons then sure I could say the points could be addressed properly. but add in the other weapons and it is neigh impossible to balance. That was also meant as a criticism to the entire edition not just the imperial guard. how do you balance a bright lance on a weapons platform with a much more durable wraithlord when the wraithlord may also choose to use 3-4 other heavy weapons or forgo any heavy weapons and just go melee with a sword. I think the older unit entry method of assigning a points cost to a model was a better way of doing things.

Hmm, look, heres someone who claims Guard where good in the last couple of editions, I wonder.... Yep, yep and yep, Eldar, Marines and Tau. The three most pampered factions of 6th and 7th edition. How did I guess?
Now, if I said what I want to say the mods would permaban me, so in regards to rule no.1 I am going to keep things as civil as possible.

First of all, stop spewing nonsense into the forums. It is clear that you have never played Guard, and you never had the pleasure of playing them in 6th or 7th, if you can call packing half to three quarters of your army away on the first turn pleasure. Guard where weak. Maybe not the weakest, but as someone who actually played them I can tell you that virtually every game was an uphill struggle against things that where just outright better than anything I had. Fighting against Tau, Marines or Eldar was basically an exercise in setting up and putting away. It was humiliating. You dont know what it was like, playing your pampered factions and enjoying being showered with love by GW. So dont youn dare come down with that high-and-mighty "Oh Guard where not bad in 6th and 7th, they had a great codex". Hell, our codex was a nerf to an already weak codex.

Secondly, how is a Powerfist (S x2) as valuable on a Guard Sergeant (WS3 S3 x 2 to 6) as opposed to a Marine sergeant (WS4 S3 x 2 to 8)? Or a Plasma gun (BS4+ vs BS3+)? Even if we ignore the difference in durability the Marine still gets more use out of his gun every time, as opposed to the Guardsman.
So, anyway, what is your proposed fix? Let me guess, we just ramp up the cost of all the Guard stuff so it costs at least twice as much as Marines pay, because Guard armies are so OP. And whilst we are at it lets make Guard infantry cost as much as the Marine equivalents, because Guardsmen are obviously worth at least as much as Marines, right? and those Russes are far too cheap, they should be 300 points each, and Baneblades 800. Yeah, thats balanced, right?
Or we could stop complaining and do what every Marine player told guard players to do over the last few editions and get good.

Thirdly, I have reached the point where I dont care anymore, so what Tau are weaker than Guard right now? Its not like they where better in every way in 6th and 7th right? We had to suck it up then, so you have too now. At least the power difference is a lot closer than it was last edition.

To all the other players whining about the points difference, look at the damn codex. Guard units only pay less for weapons when they are BS4+, all the BS3+ units still pay the exact same prices as the other Imperial BS3+ models do. Stop complaining, stop overblowing things and stop being reactionary.

JorpA wrote:

That calculation does not make sense. If you have two full guardsmen squads one with all lasguns and one that has plasmagun the squad with Plasma is better. So you get benefit from that plasma upgrade ofc its more expensive but it's up to you if you want to pay for it or not. Allso you cant mix the platform efectivy in to this as it's all ready componsated on the platform cost.

Just so you know, you can never have an all lasgun squad. Sergeants can never have them.

The mostly Lasgun Squads however will benefit from FRFSRF...the Plasma Gun squad won't.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Guard did not have a bad codex in 5th, 6th or 7th. I would agree that they were not always in the top tier army but they were usually solidly mid tier. I like the Guard as an army, but this edition their stuff just went too cheap for other armies to compete as a whole. I can have a fun game vs guard with my elder, my space marines have a noticeable power difference but it is not insurmountable, but my Tau and Orks are not even in the same League as guard currently.

I also disagree on the saying the 4+ is all that matters. read the whole thing. if they could ONLY take Autocannons then sure I could say the points could be addressed properly. but add in the other weapons and it is neigh impossible to balance. That was also meant as a criticism to the entire edition not just the imperial guard. how do you balance a bright lance on a weapons platform with a much more durable wraithlord when the wraithlord may also choose to use 3-4 other heavy weapons or forgo any heavy weapons and just go melee with a sword. I think the older unit entry method of assigning a points cost to a model was a better way of doing things.

Hmm, look, heres someone who claims Guard where good in the last couple of editions, I wonder.... Yep, yep and yep, Eldar, Marines and Tau. The three most pampered factions of 6th and 7th edition. How did I guess?
Now, if I said what I want to say the mods would permaban me, so in regards to rule no.1 I am going to keep things as civil as possible.

First of all, stop spewing nonsense into the forums. It is clear that you have never played Guard, and you never had the pleasure of playing them in 6th or 7th, if you can call packing half to three quarters of your army away on the first turn pleasure. Guard where weak. Maybe not the weakest, but as someone who actually played them I can tell you that virtually every game was an uphill struggle against things that where just outright better than anything I had. Fighting against Tau, Marines or Eldar was basically an exercise in setting up and putting away. It was humiliating. You dont know what it was like, playing your pampered factions and enjoying being showered with love by GW. So dont youn dare come down with that high-and-mighty "Oh Guard where not bad in 6th and 7th, they had a great codex". Hell, our codex was a nerf to an already weak codex.

Secondly, how is a Powerfist (S x2) as valuable on a Guard Sergeant (WS3 S3 x 2 to 6) as opposed to a Marine sergeant (WS4 S3 x 2 to 8)? Or a Plasma gun (BS4+ vs BS3+)? Even if we ignore the difference in durability the Marine still gets more use out of his gun every time, as opposed to the Guardsman.
So, anyway, what is your proposed fix? Let me guess, we just ramp up the cost of all the Guard stuff so it costs at least twice as much as Marines pay, because Guard armies are so OP. And whilst we are at it lets make Guard infantry cost as much as the Marine equivalents, because Guardsmen are obviously worth at least as much as Marines, right? and those Russes are far too cheap, they should be 300 points each, and Baneblades 800. Yeah, thats balanced, right?
Or we could stop complaining and do what every Marine player told guard players to do over the last few editions and get good.

Thirdly, I have reached the point where I dont care anymore, so what Tau are weaker than Guard right now? Its not like they where better in every way in 6th and 7th right? We had to suck it up then, so you have too now. At least the power difference is a lot closer than it was last edition.

To all the other players whining about the points difference, look at the damn codex. Guard units only pay less for weapons when they are BS4+, all the BS3+ units still pay the exact same prices as the other Imperial BS3+ models do. Stop complaining, stop overblowing things and stop being reactionary.

First off. Calm. Down. Take a breath. We're talking about plastic army men. No reason to get this worked up over plastic army men we use to shout "pew pew" at each other then flip a coin to see who pew pewed the best.

Second. How good or bad an army was in previous editions shouldn't matter. This game isn't balanced based on karma. Imperial Guard don't deserve to be the strongest army in the game simply because they were bad in 6th and 7th. Tau don't deserve to be bottom tier simply because they were good in 6th and 7th. Balance should not be based on past power rankings, but rather on trying to make the game as balanced as possible. If that means buffing Guard and nerfing Tau, great, fantastic, I'm all for it. But only to the point that the two armies are on a relatively equal playing field, not to the point that they switch positions in the power rankings.

Third. It helps a lot to respond to people based on what they say, not what armies they play. Basing a reply off of that is an Ad Hominem and makes you sound like a petulant child.

Fourth. Addressing the points cost of weapons issue. Yes, a single Space Marine will probably get more use out of a Plasma Gun compared to a single Guardsman. But due to the lowered cost of Guardsmen with a Plasma Gun, you can take multiple Guardsmen with Plasma for every Marine with Plasma. I think the points work out that you can get 2 Plasma Guardsmen for every Plasma Marine with points left over? I personally would rather have 2 BS 4+ plasma guns than 1 BS 3+ plasma gun, especially considering they both die to Overcharge the same. That's what people mean when they complain about Guard weapon prices. Yeah, your guys individually are worse with the weapons than other armies. But you can bring so many of them that it doesn't matter cause you get better results simply through weight of numbers.

JorpA wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
The platform (guardsmen vs marine) are costed accordingly, 4 PPM to 13 PPM, to their given statlines.
The special weapons are the same statline.

Why does AM benefit twice, once for paying less PPM for being less durable/less accurate, and then another for the weapon that does the same thing?

because these things compound each other, they dont exist in isolation.

The guardsmen is 4pts with a lasgun, a plasma gun isnt worth 13pts (more than triple the initial platform cost) on a BS4+ T5 5+sv Ld6 guardsmen, the platform (the guardsmen) isnt able to take advantage of the weapon as well as a Space Marine is. That goes beyond just the platform, but applies to the weapon as well.

We can show this mathematically.

4 guardsmen (16pts) with lasguns at 12" are killing 0.88 Space Marines in a turn, or 0.055 wounds a turn per point

1 Guardsmen with a Plasmagun will kill 0.694 (assuming overcharge) or 0.56 (assuming no overcharge). If we split the difference, that's 0.625 wounds.
If we cost a Plasma gun at 7pts, an 11pt guardsmen is turning out 0.057 wounds a turn per point, almost identical to the lasgun equipped guardsmen. This makes it a balanced, considered choice.

If we cost the PG at 13pts however, like Space Marines, then the Plasma Guardsman, at 17pts, is only doing 0.037 wounds per point per turn, dramatically worse than the lasgun guardsmen, 35% drop in cost effectiveness, youre better off just taking more lasguns, the plasma gun becomes an objectively inferior choice to more dudes.

That calculation does not make sense. If you have two full guardsmen squads one with all lasguns and one that has plasmagun the squad with Plasma is better. So you get benefit from that plasma upgrade ofc its more expensive but it's up to you if you want to pay for it or not. Allso you cant mix the platform efectivy in to this as it's all ready componsated on the platform cost.

Allso if special weapons have to have different prices on different factions it should be opposite to what it is now. For example if you think real life military elite forces they have larger and better selection of different weaponry than normal infantry. It should be same in 40k. So if anything spacemarines and maybe some elite IG units should definiatly have cheaper special weapons than puny guardsmen. Just think about it why would imperium produce more special weapons (lower cost) for standard line infantry than they do for their elite forces? This does not make any sense. Guns should stay at same cost at least for all the imperium and if there has to be different prices guns should be cheaper for elite forces.

While I agree in principal and have thought this many times, the issue then comes to a balance point. After all, the elite forces that would get the price breaks on them would be the units that can best use them already. I mean, a good chunk of the reason plasma got a second price point for guard was because Scions + Plasma is really strong. If the prices were say swapped for guard, with 3+ units (the better trained, more elite units) getting the cheaper price, you would simply see more naked lasgun squads as chaff and a ton more Scions and Veterans to abuse the mechanic.

The same would go with Space Marines. You would see very few extra Tactical Squads with a single plasma gun, you would instead just see the strongest unit for any one job getting spammed with the cheaper guns. Though I suppose it could work as a means of balancing the Tac Squad's lackluster performance - an expensive base unit with jack of all trades stats, but cheap upgrades. It would still be better to price things on a per unit basis though, rather than arbitrarily deciding what is and is not elite (and muddling the waters considering there is an elites slot already too).


And MoO, the thread title itself points out ranged weapons, at no point were Power Fists, or even melee weapons in general mentioned.

Kanluwen, you're getting a bit heated and crossing over the Rule #1 line. Keep it calm and reply to the points made. You're being terribly negative and going off the rails a bit.

(There were three mod alerts for you on this thread, all from different posters).

Thank you.

I get what youre saying with the BS being lower, but why does a wargear need to be tailored around the platform? It's not about the effective WPP I'm talking about, but rather, why a weapon that does SAME STRENGTH, SAME AP & SAME DAMAGE can be priced differently just because of the platforms statline? There are numerous weapons available on platforms that clearly "arent worth taking for its price" in the game across all armies. Whats the deal with AM?

Listen, a single plasma in a guardmen unit isnt even game breaking. Whats at hand is the intent on considering weapon pricing based on the platform, but it has been singularly applied to AM, thats all.

Why not for all armies? If not for all armies, why just AM?

If we're putting BS differences on the weapon's cost I don't understand why Space Marines pay extra for BS3.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If we're putting BS differences on the weapon's cost I don't understand why Space Marines pay extra for BS3.

Because the effect BS has on a plasmagun is bigger than on a bolter. So in theory marines pay for their bolter BS, and then when they buy a plsamagun they pay extra for plasma BS.
Going from 4+ to 3+ improves damage by 33% for both, but one weapon is crap and the other is versatile death machine where these 33% are worth more.

 Sonic Keyboard wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If we're putting BS differences on the weapon's cost I don't understand why Space Marines pay extra for BS3.

Because the effect BS has on a plasmagun is bigger than on a bolter. So in theory marines pay for their bolter BS, and then when they buy a plsamagun they pay extra for plasma BS.
Going from 4+ to 3+ improves damage by 33% for both, but one weapon is crap and the other is versatile death machine where these 33% are worth more.

....No, no its not. The effect of a BS increase is the same for all weapons across the board. If Marines pay for their BS increase in their base statline, why do they need to pay for it again in the cost of a special weapon?

It's almost like people don't understand the pricing formula GW is using of the armies in 8th Edition. It appears to be the following:
1. Determine all unit values including cost for Wargear upgrade options on all units.
2. Price basic weapons that are never used as an upgrade as 0 Points. Unit base cost is thus the cost of said model determine in step 1.
3. All wargear selected as upgrades have cost set at model cost from step 2 with upgrade minus base unit cost.
4. Go over all units that have priced warmer from step 3 and reduce base cost by wargear cost from step 3.

This is how you end up with units that have their standard weapon with a cost AND why some wargear options cost more for some armies than others. I hear all this whining about "Why are IG Plasmaguns cheaper than Space Marine Plasmaguns" but no one complains about IG Bolt Pistols and Blowguns being more expense than the Space Marine versions.

Frankly, I think the problem with IG Melta/Plasma has less to do with the BS of the unit wielding it than with the fact that the few BS3+ units int he Codex happen to be able to take multiple Plasmaguns AND two of them can deep strike. That makes them super useful, especially with he badly considered Overcharge rule they implemented. There would be a lot less Plasma flying around of the overcharge rule was "you choose make 1 shot attack with this weapon when shooting, but each Hit roll of 1 or less inflicts a Mortal Wound on the unit".

 GI_Redshirt wrote:

 Sonic Keyboard wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If we're putting BS differences on the weapon's cost I don't understand why Space Marines pay extra for BS3.

Because the effect BS has on a plasmagun is bigger than on a bolter. So in theory marines pay for their bolter BS, and then when they buy a plsamagun they pay extra for plasma BS.
Going from 4+ to 3+ improves damage by 33% for both, but one weapon is crap and the other is versatile death machine where these 33% are worth more.

....No, no its not. The effect of a BS increase is the same for all weapons across the board. If Marines pay for their BS increase in their base statline, why do they need to pay for it again in the cost of a special weapon?

BS increases the average amount of hits a model inflicts with any weapon, in this case by 33%. We get an extra hit out of every 3 shots.
One extra hit with a plasmagun should be worth more than one extra hit from a bolter, and we can't put that into price of a marine.

 Sonic Keyboard wrote:

 GI_Redshirt wrote:

 Sonic Keyboard wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If we're putting BS differences on the weapon's cost I don't understand why Space Marines pay extra for BS3.

Because the effect BS has on a plasmagun is bigger than on a bolter. So in theory marines pay for their bolter BS, and then when they buy a plsamagun they pay extra for plasma BS.
Going from 4+ to 3+ improves damage by 33% for both, but one weapon is crap and the other is versatile death machine where these 33% are worth more.

....No, no its not. The effect of a BS increase is the same for all weapons across the board. If Marines pay for their BS increase in their base statline, why do they need to pay for it again in the cost of a special weapon?

BS increases the amount of hits a model inflicts with any weapon, in this case by 33%. We get an extra hit out of every 3 shots.
One extra hit with a plasmagun should be worth more than one extra hit from a bolter, and we can't put that into price of a marine.

Exactly. The BS increases the amount of hits a model inflicts with ANY weapon. Not just Plasma. It doesn't matter if we're discussion Bolters, or Plasma, or Meltas, or Lascannons. The BS increase should therefore be built into the cost of the base unit alone as that increase affects the effectiveness of any weapon they wield. The increase in power from a Bolter to a Plasma Gun should be accounted for in the cost of the Plasma Gun compared to a Bolter. A Plasma Gun is just a superior to a Bolter on a 4+ platform as it is on a 3+ platform. Therefore, the only difference should be the cost increase of a 3+ platform compared to a 4+ platform. Nothing should be considered in the cost of the weapon beyond the power of that weapon relative to other weapons.

Then a 6ppm ork should pay the same 15 points for equivalent of autocannon a 13ppm chaos marine gets.

One of them is 21 pts and the other is 33% more expensive for twice the firepower (3 times when moving or firing at raven guard, etc.), and 3+ armor save. Does this feel right?

I don't have every codex, but Space Marines and Tyranids already pay different prices for a few different weapon and wargear options within their own codexes depending on what model is taking them.

Sedraxis wrote:
Because Guard has to be the best at everything this edition, can't have them paying the same price as everyone else. /s

Honestly I don't know. It makes sense that a bad bs can't benefit from a weapon as much as a better shooter, but why does this only apply to Guard? They seem to be double dipping on all sides (regiments apply to everything, most CP, great statagems, great relics, great psykers & abilities, biggest flexibility on units and tactics and free orders on top of it).

Hard to compare as not many other BS4+ has access to heavy bolters(sisters have it but they are 3+). Orks pay less(albeit not enough) for the big shoota. 6 pts for what's assault vs heavy and no -1 AP. I doubt lack of AP is worth 4 pts though especially since they have assault over heavy so clearly they pay less for not having BS 3+ or even 4+.

Funny that less effective weapon costing less. Problem being more of armies with mix of BS where one unit does not pay enough. With IG they fixed that but only for melta and plasma. For orks for example either BS4+ get too cheap(though here you could say they are only ones paying fair price...) or BS5+ too much based on is price based on BS4+ or 5+.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
To those saying its because Guardsmen are less durable than Marines and therefore shouldn't have to pay as much for weapons, wasn't that the entire reasoning behind splitting up points costs the way they did? The stat line and special rules of a unit are priced accordingly within the cost of the base model, then the weapons and wargear are separately priced based on their stat lines and special rules. So a Marine being more durable and more accurate than a Guardsman is reflected in the base cost of the Marine or Guardsman, while the special weapon (let's say a Plasma Gun) is priced according to the stat line of the weapon itself. Doesn't having the weapon be cheaper for Guardsmen because Guardsmen are less durable and less accurate than Marines when Guardsmen is already cheaper pointswise to accommodate for the fact that Guardsmen is less durable and less accurate than Marines defeat the purpose of splitting the points costs in the first place?

Of course you can't just take those separate from each other and assume it's going to be balanced...As it is GW has already decoupled those TOO much. Lascannon is worth different based on is it mounted on infantry squad, heavy weapon squad or leman russ. What they SHOULD have done is price each weapon for each platform separately but that's too complex for GW.

But platform affects value of weapon. You can't separate them and assume you get anywhere near balanced. Well not that GW really cares about balance.

The base model includes all its stats and abilities in pricing to a degree. Movement, overall accuracy, durability, interaction with other stuff in army.

The weapon cost is then tweaked based on effectiveness on that platform, hence weapons starting to has BS3+ and BS4+ costs.

It does make sense as a concept. Whether you think the exact application works is a different matter, but the core of it is sound. It's not really a double discount. To do it properly it should really be a different cost for each weapon for every possible platform. But that way lies madness for the writers!

GW have shown they're under pressure and not triple-checking everything at the mo through gaffes like cheaper Powerfists but not reducing Chainfists. Too many army books and projects all at once is seeing imperfect stuff sent to the printer. That's irritating, but the new FAQ hotline email address and March balancing pass give hope they'll fix things like that imbalance relatively swiftly.

They're also reacting not proactively tackling stuff, likely for time reasons. Plasma and Conscripts got addressed, leaving Guard troopers now effectively paying too much for any special weapons not tweaked to a special BS4+ price - hello meltaguns. They haven't seen rampant Meltagun abuse so haven't addressed the price. The FAQ hotline will give a chance for things like this to be fed back so they can enrich the meta with more choices than plasma again.

Different Weapons should all have a different cost based on the hit number of the model equipping it. Most of the time this is solved by there only being one type of model equipping said weapon, and characters of that type. It shows the most problems in Imperium factions as they have the most shared equipment.

There should also be some thought given to how likely it is those models will be using some bonus that increases their odds of hitting.

Finally hitting on a 4+ is not half as effective as hitting on a 3+. If a 3+ Plasmagun is 13pts, then a 4+ plasma gun should be around 10pts.

Justyn wrote:
Different Weapons should all have a different cost based on the hit number of the model equipping it. Most of the time this is solved by there only being one type of model equipping said weapon, and characters of that type. It shows the most problems in Imperium factions as they have the most shared equipment.

There should also be some thought given to how likely it is those models will be using some bonus that increases their odds of hitting.

Finally hitting on a 4+ is not half as effective as hitting on a 3+. If a 3+ Plasmagun is 13pts, then a 4+ plasma gun should be around 10pts.

No this does not make sense. You allready pay less for the dudes wielding thous guns. To get similiar power with marines out of thous guardsmen you should just get more of them. Not to upgrade them to the point that compared with marines. Marines look like some fresh recruits with old crappy guns. Guardsmen should be inferior compared to marines on every aspect expect being cheap Fighters. So thats what guardsmen should use to have similar power than marines have more bodies.

Justyn wrote:
Different Weapons should all have a different cost based on the hit number of the model equipping it. Most of the time this is solved by there only being one type of model equipping said weapon, and characters of that type. It shows the most problems in Imperium factions as they have the most shared equipment.

Except value of gun is based on more than just to hit number. This is why GW has yet to ever get weapon costs right. At least they have gone better from ages where IG and marines paid same for power fist despite one clearly being inferior to other. Still all weapons should be priced on unit it's mounted which means even 2 models with 4+ could have different price.

tneva82 wrote:

Justyn wrote:
Different Weapons should all have a different cost based on the hit number of the model equipping it. Most of the time this is solved by there only being one type of model equipping said weapon, and characters of that type. It shows the most problems in Imperium factions as they have the most shared equipment.

Except value of gun is based on more than just to hit number. This is why GW has yet to ever get weapon costs right. At least they have gone better from ages where IG and marines paid same for power fist despite one clearly being inferior to other. Still all weapons should be priced on unit it's mounted which means even 2 models with 4+ could have different price.

Absolutely right. This is the start of what will no doubt tumble down through more weapons as time goes on. With balance comes points complexity.

Ranged weapons should cost MORE for AM, not less. AM is currently the top tier army, there's no reason to give them the advantage of discount weapons.

 skchsan wrote:
I get what youre saying with the BS being lower, but why does a wargear need to be tailored around the platform? It's not about the effective WPP I'm talking about, but rather, why a weapon that does SAME STRENGTH, SAME AP & SAME DAMAGE can be priced differently just because of the platforms statline? There are numerous weapons available on platforms that clearly "arent worth taking for its price" in the game across all armies. Whats the deal with AM?

Listen, a single plasma in a guardmen unit isnt even game breaking. Whats at hand is the intent on considering weapon pricing based on the platform, but it has been singularly applied to AM, thats all.

Why not for all armies? If not for all armies, why just AM?

Because every other army where you get that direct comparison has BS3+ and better stats. If you look at, for instance, Genestealer Cultists, they also pay the Guardsman price for their weapons rather than the Space Marine price. You can also compare to other weapons that are similar in other armies. For instance, an ork Kustom Mega Blasta is a slightly better (because of less nasty Gets Hot) perma-overcharged plasma gun. Same stats, same AP, same damage on average, better gets hot rule, but on a crappier platform. 9 points. That's just how the game is priced out, weapons' platforms are taken into account in the pricing.

tneva82 wrote:

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
To those saying its because Guardsmen are less durable than Marines and therefore shouldn't have to pay as much for weapons, wasn't that the entire reasoning behind splitting up points costs the way they did? The stat line and special rules of a unit are priced accordingly within the cost of the base model, then the weapons and wargear are separately priced based on their stat lines and special rules. So a Marine being more durable and more accurate than a Guardsman is reflected in the base cost of the Marine or Guardsman, while the special weapon (let's say a Plasma Gun) is priced according to the stat line of the weapon itself. Doesn't having the weapon be cheaper for Guardsmen because Guardsmen are less durable and less accurate than Marines when Guardsmen is already cheaper pointswise to accommodate for the fact that Guardsmen is less durable and less accurate than Marines defeat the purpose of splitting the points costs in the first place?

Of course you can't just take those separate from each other and assume it's going to be balanced...As it is GW has already decoupled those TOO much. Lascannon is worth different based on is it mounted on infantry squad, heavy weapon squad or leman russ. What they SHOULD have done is price each weapon for each platform separately but that's too complex for GW.

But platform affects value of weapon. You can't separate them and assume you get anywhere near balanced. Well not that GW really cares about balance.

More prices all over the place also gives GW more of a chance of missing a value when errata time swings around/more work.
That's why they've stuck and doubled down on standardised Points Costs that are decoupled from the models that use them (most of the time anyway; as noted Guard plasma has different costs based on the BS).

 GI_Redshirt wrote:

 Sonic Keyboard wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If we're putting BS differences on the weapon's cost I don't understand why Space Marines pay extra for BS3.

Because the effect BS has on a plasmagun is bigger than on a bolter. So in theory marines pay for their bolter BS, and then when they buy a plsamagun they pay extra for plasma BS.
Going from 4+ to 3+ improves damage by 33% for both, but one weapon is crap and the other is versatile death machine where these 33% are worth more.

....No, no its not. The effect of a BS increase is the same for all weapons across the board. If Marines pay for their BS increase in their base statline, why do they need to pay for it again in the cost of a special weapon?

Yes or No:
Marines have 3+ saves versus a Guardsman's 5+ save?
Marines can split units of 10 into smaller units of 5, allowing for specials/heavies to be insulated from their bolterbros?

The points difference between a Tactical Marine and a Guardsman is more than just their BS increase. They pay for their armor save, their Leadership, their Toughness, etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
To those saying its because Guardsmen are less durable than Marines and therefore shouldn't have to pay as much for weapons, wasn't that the entire reasoning behind splitting up points costs the way they did? The stat line and special rules of a unit are priced accordingly within the cost of the base model, then the weapons and wargear are separately priced based on their stat lines and special rules. So a Marine being more durable and more accurate than a Guardsman is reflected in the base cost of the Marine or Guardsman, while the special weapon (let's say a Plasma Gun) is priced according to the stat line of the weapon itself. Doesn't having the weapon be cheaper for Guardsmen because Guardsmen are less durable and less accurate than Marines when Guardsmen is already cheaper pointswise to accommodate for the fact that Guardsmen is less durable and less accurate than Marines defeat the purpose of splitting the points costs in the first place?

Of course you can't just take those separate from each other and assume it's going to be balanced...As it is GW has already decoupled those TOO much. Lascannon is worth different based on is it mounted on infantry squad, heavy weapon squad or leman russ. What they SHOULD have done is price each weapon for each platform separately but that's too complex for GW.

But platform affects value of weapon. You can't separate them and assume you get anywhere near balanced. Well not that GW really cares about balance.

More prices all over the place also gives GW more of a chance of missing a value when errata time swings around/more work.
That's why they've stuck and doubled down on standardised Points Costs that are decoupled from the models that use them (most of the time anyway; as noted Guard plasma has different costs based on the BS).

And realistically, the only reason Plasma got changed to be BS3+ or BS Other is because of Scions. They nerfed Veterans in the same instance as nerfing Scions despite Veterans not really being problematic.

Scions were relatively cheap, could take large quantities of Plasma, and had the ability to Deep Strike.

Weapons should cost more for units that can use them better.

The difference from Bs3 to Bs4 is worth a certain amount of points to the "base" model (which may be equipped with, for example, a lasgun or a bolter).

But the Bs difference is worth more when that model is carrying a special weapon that can do a lot of damage.

So you have a base price increase when going to higher level Bs, but you also get an increase in the cost of weapon options.

That is a far better system than the standardised points we used to have.

If you can't see it then all I can say is learn some maths and do some calcs

kurhanik wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
Cruddace wrote the Codex and was one of the Leads on the edition, that is why they are cheaper than they should be on AM than other armies. That said the platform is very different and that is why having a single points cost for weapons is absurd.

Cruddace is also responsible for the previous two trash codices for Guard...so now all of a sudden he's writing good stuff?

Also, Guard don't have a single points cost for all weapons. Melta and Plasma both have two points costs. Do you think every thing else needs the same? Because if you do, then I want two points costs for Plasma Pistols in Marine books, I want two points costs for Boltguns, I want two points costs for every other flipping book out there when there's an option that can be taken on an HQ or a normal option and there is a BS or WS difference.

I also want Guard characters to be given every single option that the basic Guardsman has access to. Because we don't get that otherwise. We can't give our Sergeants or Officers a Lasgun, we can't give them Combi-Weapons, we can't give them anything super special outside of Relics.

how does one accurately points a autocannon that may be on a T3 BS4+ W2 save 5+ heavy weapons team AND still have it accurate for a T6 BS4+ W6 save 3+ Armored Sentinel, while at the same time balancing out the affect of a swap to lascannons on the same unit.And this is two weapons in two units of the same Codex. Honestly I am hoping we see a return in 9th to weapons getting different costs on different platforms.

The points are based on the BS of an item.

The Sentinel being more durable doesn't mean jack when it's still hitting on a 4+.

Guard did not have a bad codex in 5th, 6th or 7th. I would agree that they were not always in the top tier army but they were usually solidly mid tier. I like the Guard as an army, but this edition their stuff just went too cheap for other armies to compete as a whole. I can have a fun game vs guard with my elder, my space marines have a noticeable power difference but it is not insurmountable, but my Tau and Orks are not even in the same League as guard currently.

I also disagree on the saying the 4+ is all that matters. read the whole thing. if they could ONLY take Autocannons then sure I could say the points could be addressed properly. but add in the other weapons and it is neigh impossible to balance. That was also meant as a criticism to the entire edition not just the imperial guard. how do you balance a bright lance on a weapons platform with a much more durable wraithlord when the wraithlord may also choose to use 3-4 other heavy weapons or forgo any heavy weapons and just go melee with a sword. I think the older unit entry method of assigning a points cost to a model was a better way of doing things.

The old 6th codex really wasn't that great - which is actually part of the problem coming into 8th. A lot of the complete garbage got buffed, and but then nobody looked and saw that the core rules on their own gave guard a big nudge. Ie: Conscripts before getting nerfed....3? 4? times - exactly the same as in 6/7th, but due to the fact that every single weapon in the game barring shootas and lasguns no longer ignored their armor, they gained a ton of staying power.

He, I swear remember hearing last edition the question of "why are guard paying the same points for stuff as space marines. The idea is that an individual guardsman hits on a 4+, so the weapon is less valuable on them than on a 3+ model. This can be seen by the fact that within the codex itself, 3+ units pay extra for the guns. Plasma is 7/13, Melta is 12/17 (I still think these values should be swapped).

Would it be better to balance if each individual unit had its own cost for each weapon? Definitely! It would probably mean that Veterans would become useful again as they won't be saddled with Scion's sins. GW is probably not going to do this for a long while though, if at all.

completely understandable, like many armies in 7th guard used an older codex not keeping up with the power creep, my meaning was that they were never in the bottom tier in tournament play. They admittedly needed allies in most cases, but they were leaps and bounds above nids, ork and a few others until they got codexes.. note mid tier does not mean they were the most powerful army or even close to it, just that they were playable and while other armies had it better for the points they were on the same playing field not left so far beind that there was not point in even playing.

 JohnnyHell wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Justyn wrote:
Different Weapons should all have a different cost based on the hit number of the model equipping it. Most of the time this is solved by there only being one type of model equipping said weapon, and characters of that type. It shows the most problems in Imperium factions as they have the most shared equipment.

Except value of gun is based on more than just to hit number. This is why GW has yet to ever get weapon costs right. At least they have gone better from ages where IG and marines paid same for power fist despite one clearly being inferior to other. Still all weapons should be priced on unit it's mounted which means even 2 models with 4+ could have different price.

Absolutely right. This is the start of what will no doubt tumble down through more weapons as time goes on. With balance comes points complexity.

I agree with this. A Lasscannon should have a different price on a Dreadnought, a Stormraven, a Devastator and a Predator.

Is like giving a fixed cost for the hability to Deepstrike. A Tactical Squad doesn't has the same value for Deepstrike than a Bloodthirster, or a blob of 30 Blodletters, for example. The use of one hability/weapon is contextual to the unit that is carrying it. Weapons should have all different point costs based in the model.
So then you can truly balance one model, giving specific costs to the different weapons he can carry based in how much power or utility those weapons give that base model.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Guard did not have a bad codex in 5th, 6th or 7th. I would agree that they were not always in the top tier army but they were usually solidly mid tier. I like the Guard as an army, but this edition their stuff just went too cheap for other armies to compete as a whole. I can have a fun game vs guard with my elder, my space marines have a noticeable power difference but it is not insurmountable, but my Tau and Orks are not even in the same League as guard currently.

I also disagree on the saying the 4+ is all that matters. read the whole thing. if they could ONLY take Autocannons then sure I could say the points could be addressed properly. but add in the other weapons and it is neigh impossible to balance. That was also meant as a criticism to the entire edition not just the imperial guard. how do you balance a bright lance on a weapons platform with a much more durable wraithlord when the wraithlord may also choose to use 3-4 other heavy weapons or forgo any heavy weapons and just go melee with a sword. I think the older unit entry method of assigning a points cost to a model was a better way of doing things.

Hmm, look, heres someone who claims Guard where good in the last couple of editions, I wonder.... Yep, yep and yep, Eldar, Marines and Tau. The three most pampered factions of 6th and 7th edition. How did I guess?
Now, if I said what I want to say the mods would permaban me, so in regards to rule no.1 I am going to keep things as civil as possible.

First of all, stop spewing nonsense into the forums. It is clear that you have never played Guard, and you never had the pleasure of playing them in 6th or 7th, if you can call packing half to three quarters of your army away on the first turn pleasure. Guard where weak. Maybe not the weakest, but as someone who actually played them I can tell you that virtually every game was an uphill struggle against things that where just outright better than anything I had. Fighting against Tau, Marines or Eldar was basically an exercise in setting up and putting away. It was humiliating. You dont know what it was like, playing your pampered factions and enjoying being showered with love by GW. So dont youn dare come down with that high-and-mighty "Oh Guard where not bad in 6th and 7th, they had a great codex". Hell, our codex was a nerf to an already weak codex.

Secondly, how is a Powerfist (S x2) as valuable on a Guard Sergeant (WS3 S3 x 2 to 6) as opposed to a Marine sergeant (WS4 S3 x 2 to 8)? Or a Plasma gun (BS4+ vs BS3+)? Even if we ignore the difference in durability the Marine still gets more use out of his gun every time, as opposed to the Guardsman.
So, anyway, what is your proposed fix? Let me guess, we just ramp up the cost of all the Guard stuff so it costs at least twice as much as Marines pay, because Guard armies are so OP. And whilst we are at it lets make Guard infantry cost as much as the Marine equivalents, because Guardsmen are obviously worth at least as much as Marines, right? and those Russes are far too cheap, they should be 300 points each, and Baneblades 800. Yeah, thats balanced, right?
Or we could stop complaining and do what every Marine player told guard players to do over the last few editions and get good.

Thirdly, I have reached the point where I dont care anymore, so what Tau are weaker than Guard right now? Its not like they where better in every way in 6th and 7th right? We had to suck it up then, so you have too now. At least the power difference is a lot closer than it was last edition.

To all the other players whining about the points difference, look at the damn codex. Guard units only pay less for weapons when they are BS4+, all the BS3+ units still pay the exact same prices as the other Imperial BS3+ models do. Stop complaining, stop overblowing things and stop being reactionary.

did you read my post at all? first off I play orks mostly, I show up and have for 3 editions taking my lumps hoping one day my lovely green boys will be useable. my tau I like the models as fun to paint but they only see the table if somebody requests a game with them (maybe 4-5 games last edition usually to help people prepare for tournaments). My point on weapons is nto that they should cost the same on all platforms, it is they should not. in fact they should not cost the same on units in the same codex. a infantry unit should not pay the same as any vehicle in any army. a big shoota is worth more on my battlewagons than it is on my boyz. as an example

 skchsan wrote:
I get what youre saying with the BS being lower, but why does a wargear need to be tailored around the platform? It's not about the effective WPP I'm talking about, but rather, why a weapon that does SAME STRENGTH, SAME AP & SAME DAMAGE can be priced differently just because of the platforms statline? There are numerous weapons available on platforms that clearly "arent worth taking for its price" in the game across all armies. Whats the deal with AM?

Listen, a single plasma in a guardmen unit isnt even game breaking. Whats at hand is the intent on considering weapon pricing based on the platform, but it has been singularly applied to AM, thats all.

Why not for all armies? If not for all armies, why just AM?

All weapons across all armies would be better balanced if the platform were taken in to account, because the abilities of the model wielding the gun matter, and you cannot effectively balance a unit with multiple weapon options by its base stat line if all the weapons don't take its abilities into account.

If we arvue for "better platform, higher the weapon cost" idea, then scions' plasmas (only) should be costed higher than imperial equivalent since they can deep strike into double tap range.

There is certainly some weirdness going on, but I, too, am of the opinion that each and every unit should have their weapons costed according to that specific unit.

For example, a Land Raider gets more utility out of its twin lascannons than a Predator, because it can move and shoot them with no penalty.

But, that would make listbuilding ULTRA COMPLEX and make the burden on the designers quite heavy indeed, since each and every unit must be balanced and it must be in relation to other, similar units (e.g. should Special Weapon Squads pay the same price as Infantry Squads? Does being able to concentrate the weapons in one place warrant a higher cost or does being more vulnerable to the weapon being killed indicate a lower cost?)

Hey man, just be thankful you're not playing Dark Eldar. We pay the same 20 points to put a Dark Lance on a T3 5+sv infantryman who treats it as a Heavy weapon as we do to put it on a tank that treats it as an assault weapon. That ability is right there on the weapon.

Incidentally we also pay the same points to put a Splinter Cannon on something replacing nothing, a single shot splinter rifle, or a double shot splinter rifle. It costs the same 15 points to gain 1 rapid firing shot, 2 rapid firing shots, or 3 rapid firing shots.

if that ain't perfectly balanced, I don't know what is.

I'm not sure why this is generating so much discussion. It's literally because marines generally hit on 3s and guardsmen hit on 4s. It makes sense to pay for the BS on the weapon rather than the platform, as better BS will have much more value aiding bigger guns than small arms. This is the reason plasma scions were such a problem - they were paying BS4+ prices for their BS3+ plasma guns.

 DoomMouse wrote:
I'm not sure why this is generating so much discussion. It's literally because marines generally hit on 3s and guardsmen hit on 4s. It makes sense to pay for the BS on the weapon rather than the platform, as better BS will have much more value aiding bigger guns than small arms. This is the reason plasma scions were such a problem - they were paying BS4+ prices for their BS3+ plasma guns.

Yes, but I think the argument is that it is unbalanced.

Also, tell me again why Flamers are cheaper for Guard than for Marines? (and for SOB and Inquisition)

It's worth noting that an Inquisitorial Acolyte has a GEQ statline yet pays MEQ prices... GW's just all over the board, but the Guard get discounts because *reasons*

 skchsan wrote:
If we arvue for "better platform, higher the weapon cost" idea, then scions' plasmas (only) should be costed higher than imperial equivalent since they can deep strike into double tap range.

Yes that's because gw points just on bs. For better it would be per unit but that requires them to bb on unit datasheet. Gw went on back of book where by platform doesn't reaily work


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 DoomMouse wrote:
I'm not sure why this is generating so much discussion. It's literally because marines generally hit on 3s and guardsmen hit on 4s. It makes sense to pay for the BS on the weapon rather than the platform, as better BS will have much more value aiding bigger guns than small arms. This is the reason plasma scions were such a problem - they were paying BS4+ prices for their BS3+ plasma guns.

By platform would account bs and other factors like survivability, special rules like deep strike, role(flamer is less useful on squads that move like turtle) etc etc.

Gw unsurprisingly went for what is never going to be even remotely balanced

tneva82 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
If we arvue for "better platform, higher the weapon cost" idea, then scions' plasmas (only) should be costed higher than imperial equivalent since they can deep strike into double tap range.

Yes that's because gw points just on bs. For better it would be per unit but that requires them to bb on unit datasheet. Gw went on back of book where by platform doesn't reaily work

Even before they went to the back of the book 8th-edition style, this was a problem.

Units have, as far as I can remember, never had their own independent points costs for things since I started playing, IIRC.

For example, I believe a Heavy Weapons Team and a Leman Russ paid the same 10 points for a heavy bolter in every edition I can remember...

Having fixed weapon cost inside the codex is a very bad idea. Having fixed weapon cost in the whole game is even worse.

To determine the value of a model you need to determine the final loadout, with both the weapons and who wields it.

Not. This. Again.

Weapons should be paid in proportion of
- How easy is the platform to be removed (less important)
- How effective is the platform with them (more important).

Movement and other variables should be taken in account for any successive balance iteration.

In past editions, the cost of the weapon was associated with the unit. The pricing was often stupid but the idea was brilliant because it allowed ad-hoc solutions.

If you have problem with the effectiveness of the AM units, is because the edition and the ways they wrote morale rules are dumber and dumber the more you look at them (and more codices come out with the "lose max 1 model" - second stupidest thing after the "-1 to hit").

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 DoomMouse wrote:
I'm not sure why this is generating so much discussion. It's literally because marines generally hit on 3s and guardsmen hit on 4s. It makes sense to pay for the BS on the weapon rather than the platform, as better BS will have much more value aiding bigger guns than small arms. This is the reason plasma scions were such a problem - they were paying BS4+ prices for their BS3+ plasma guns.

Yes, but I think the argument is that it is unbalanced.

Also, tell me again why Flamers are cheaper for Guard than for Marines? (and for SOB and Inquisition)

It's worth noting that an Inquisitorial Acolyte has a GEQ statline yet pays MEQ prices... GW's just all over the board, but the Guard get discounts because *reasons*

That is one thing I wonder on too. While Flamers aren't the most effective of weapons, it seems like they should have the opposite pricing of melta/plasma for changing BS. 1d6 autohits is more valuable on a 4+ unit than a 3+ unit after all.

Still, it would be just better overall to have weapons priced to the platform. Not going to happen anytime soon, but at least we are stepping in the right direction.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Not. This. Again.

Weapons should be paid in proportion of
- How easy is the platform to be removed (less important)
- How effective is the platform with them (more important).

Movement and other variables should be taken in account for any successive balance iteration.

In past editions, the cost of the weapon was associated with the unit. The pricing was often stupid but the idea was brilliant because it allowed ad-hoc solutions.

If you have problem with the effectiveness of the AM units, is because the edition and the ways they wrote morale rules are dumber and dumber the more you look at them (and more codices come out with the "lose max 1 model" - second stupidest thing after the "-1 to hit").

Here I am just sitting here hoping they continue to add more stacking -1LD modifiers onto my multi-eldar soup lists.

Currently my max debuff is -7, most of which is pretty cheap/easy.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Weapons should be paid in proportion of
- How easy is the platform to be removed (less important)

Why? No one's forcing you or mandating you to purchase the weapon. If you don't think the platform isn't worth the added cost of the weapon, you shouldn't purchase it.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Weapons should be paid in proportion of
- How effective is the platform with them (more important).

Again, why? Weapons themselves already have grades/effectiveness/calibers that are priced accordingly - i.e. rail weapon on pathfinders/broadside/hammerheads. In the same way, Weapons that are named different but have the same stats are priced the same - i.e. storm bolter/twin boltgun.

On another note, plasma cannon/heavy plasma cannon deal the same damage, but the latter is priced 9 pts higher. Why? because it is T7, W8 that has already been paid for in the unit's base cost? Where in the logic of 40k (if any) does it make sense to price two same weapon that does the SAME THING at two different costs, just because one is worse than the other at shooting with the said weapon?

I'm not saying its game breaking - hence we're in general discussion. I'd just like to see the line of logic applied in AM points derivation applied game-wide, if not, not at all.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
If we arvue for "better platform, higher the weapon cost" idea, then scions' plasmas (only) should be costed higher than imperial equivalent since they can deep strike into double tap range.

Yes that's because gw points just on bs. For better it would be per unit but that requires them to bb on unit datasheet. Gw went on back of book where by platform doesn't reaily work

Even before they went to the back of the book 8th-edition style, this was a problem.

Units have, as far as I can remember, never had their own independent points costs for things since I started playing, IIRC.

For example, I believe a Heavy Weapons Team and a Leman Russ paid the same 10 points for a heavy bolter in every edition I can remember...

Yeah actually it used to be even worse resulting in IG captains paying same for their power fists that made them whopping S6(and being much less likely to survive to swing it) as marines that got to S8. But at least before codexes had format that could have supported it. Now system is one that would make ridiculous looking page.

There was format of codexes where they had prices of weapons o unit's entry. that was how it should have been. If GW had had competence to actually try to balance stuff rather than do just something to sell models.


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 skchsan wrote:

Again, why? Weapons themselves already have grades/effectiveness/calibers that are priced accordingly - i.e. rail weapon on pathfinders/broadside/hammerheads. In the same way, Weapons that are named different but have the same stats are priced the same - i.e. storm bolter/twin boltgun; plasma cannon/heavy plasma cannon (why they're called HEAVY plasma cannons dealing same damage, IDFK). Where in the logic of 40k (if any) does it make sense to price two same weapon that does the SAME THING at two different costs, just because one is worse than the other at shooting with the said weapon?

I'm not saying its game breaking - hence we're in general discussion. I'd just like to see the line of logic applied in AM points derivation applied game-wide, if not, not at all.

BEcause of this thing called BALANCE? Or do you want some options to be worthless and others be too good so you can mathammer yourself advantage so that you can win the game before models are even deployed? Or do you want game to be decided on in game decisions?

tneva82 wrote:
Yeah actually it used to be even worse resulting in IG captains paying same for their power fists that made them whopping S6(and being much less likely to survive to swing it) as marines that got to S8. But at least before codexes had format that could have supported it. Now system is one that would make ridiculous looking page

Then by that extension, power fists on marines should cost less than terminator power fists (because they can deepstrike), and power fists on assault marines should cost more than termie PF's since they can deepstrike AND move faster, thereby withstanding less shooting phases, to be more "likely to survive to swing it."

We're not saying that its unbalanced towards AM. We're saying this mechanism work singularly for the benefit of AM, and for no other armies - this isn't balance; it is bias.


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tneva82 wrote:
do you want some options to be worthless and others be too good so you can mathammer yourself advantage so that you can win the game before models are even deployed? Or do you want game to be decided on in game decisions?

If you believe mathhammer dictate the final outcome of the game even SOMETIMES, then obviously you haven't played enough games (no offense intended). The element of chance is real.

Mathhammer always dictates the outcome. Part of the math happens to be random. But in many cases the law of large numbers of dice make this predictable. Single lascannons are extremely swingy however. Player decisions ultimately just influence the nature of the math that gets crunched.

 skchsan wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Yeah actually it used to be even worse resulting in IG captains paying same for their power fists that made them whopping S6(and being much less likely to survive to swing it) as marines that got to S8. But at least before codexes had format that could have supported it. Now system is one that would make ridiculous looking page

Then by that extension, power fists on marines should cost less than terminator power fists (because they can deepstrike), and power fists on assault marines should cost more than termie PF's since they can deepstrike AND move faster, thereby withstanding less shooting phases, to be more "likely to survive to swing it."

We're not saying that its unbalanced towards AM. We're saying this mechanism work singularly for the benefit of AM, and for no other armies - this isn't balance; it is bias.

GW hasn't got system perfect ever. Not claiming they have. Before they didn't bother to even consider other factors than stats of weapon for points. Now they do but they have made points to back making even 2 different BS within same book problematic.

Obviously if platform is better for weapon it should be more pricey than same weapon on other platform. That's what I have been saying. Or on alternative example let's imagine squad of assault marines with lascannons. Obviously this unit needs to cost more than devastators as it is useful to have jump packs on devastators it's still losing efficiency on the model as you have lascannon(weapon that wants to stand still) on jump pack(you are paying for ability to move fast). So lascannon here should get discount(obviously not enough to make these cheapest lascannon platforms though)

but GW doesn't care one whit about balance so no chance of this ever being reality. So we are left with one of two bad choices.

If you believe mathhammer dictate the final outcome of the game even SOMETIMES, then obviously you haven't played enough games (no offense intended). The element of chance is real.

There's chance but only fool would claim that army with tons of underpointed units wouldn't have advantage. There's NO BENEFIT WHATSOEVER in having unbalanced game. Nobody. Repeat NOBODY benefits from unbalanced game.

 skchsan wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Yeah actually it used to be even worse resulting in IG captains paying same for their power fists that made them whopping S6(and being much less likely to survive to swing it) as marines that got to S8. But at least before codexes had format that could have supported it. Now system is one that would make ridiculous looking page

Then by that extension, power fists on marines should cost less than terminator power fists (because they can deepstrike), and power fists on assault marines should cost more than termie PF's since they can deepstrike AND move faster, thereby withstanding less shooting phases, to be more "likely to survive to swing it."

We're not saying that its unbalanced towards AM. We're saying this mechanism work singularly for the benefit of AM, and for no other armies - this isn't balance; it is bias.

Because there isnt another broadly BS4+ Imperial army. Thats the slice GW has chosen to cut on, its as granular as they want to get, and its not an awful place to make that distinction. Is it perfect? No. Is it more balanced than IG grunts paying 13pts for plasma guns? Yes.

Such was a perennial issue in several previous IG books, and it worked heavily against IG infantry viability when they paid the same costs as Space Marines for such weapons in previous editions, the infantry units just were always way too expensive for what they offered.

Currently, it doesn't appear to be problem in and of itself, aside from a couple voices that bleat for anything and everything for IG to be nerfed just for its own sake, the differentiated pricing isnt something people have an issue with (rather, its with things like no LoS weapons or Smite platforms or what the appropriate cost of basic IG infantry should be, etc).

tneva82 wrote:
Obviously if platform is better for weapon it should be more pricey than same weapon on other platform. That's what I have been saying. Or on alternative example let's imagine squad of assault marines with lascannons. Obviously this unit needs to cost more than devastators as it is useful to have jump packs on devastators it's still losing efficiency on the model as you have lascannon(weapon that wants to stand still) on jump pack(you are paying for ability to move fast). So lascannon here should get discount(obviously not enough to make these cheapest lascannon platforms though)

But see here, what your suggestion ends up doing is penalizing certain units for being good at what they're designed to be good at... and which they pay extra points for in their base cost in the first place.

Lowering the weapon points option for 'underperforming' units doesn't scale the same way upwards - if you want to equip melee weapons on assault oriented unit, you'd have to pay more those weapons? So they pay extra points, like how scions pay extra for hotshot lasguns and grav chuts vs vets, AND THEN they pay extra for the weapons because they're good at using it?

What I'm trying to get at is that if a mechanic can't/doesn't scale/work for rest of the game, it shouldn't be utilized.

Toughness should 100% NOT be a factor in the price of equipment, because toughness is not a fixed thing on a unit. A squad of guardsman are as tough as space marines when they're in a vehicle, in reserve, or out of LoS. 5th edition actually had a perfect example of this problem: A plas-vet was cheaper than space marines with a similar set up (because obviously the vets are weedier and only have lasguns as their non-special/heavy weapon), and the rhino was cheaper than the chimera because the chimera had more weapons and fire points. Combined, the vets+chimera was cheaper... but was far and away more powerful than the marines in a rhino, because the marines couldn't use their toughness and bolters. Same with deep striking and infiltrating: you basically get a free turn of full damage on the turn you arrive.

Similarily, how do you consider toughness buffs and debuffs? do you base cost assuming the unit will be in cover? What about faction bonus? should there be separate costs for raven guard and iron hand special weapons? consider how un-user friendly that would be (and how much paper that would require)

I can get behind cost changes based on output, but mostly because of modifiers. An assault or heavy weapon is exponentially more useful to a model with high BS than one with low BS, rather than linear.

The problem with cost changes based on output, means that the best unit builds are once again QUANTITY over quality. Why take swingy units when you can take large amounts of low performing units and rely on weight of dice to push your averages through.

Let us use the Scions Plasma Command Squad as an example. BS3 and Deepstrike, pretty good, have access to orders to avoid blowing up on overcharged mode.

They have the ability to hit where they want and to hit it HARD. Their durability doesn't matter, they have one job, they will make their points back unless the opponent has large amounts of low point models so their plasma can't get in double-tap range. They're pretty much a fire and forget unit, how do you cost something like that? They are high quality offensive unit, able to do the lifting of a tactical squad within one turn easily. But they can flub their rolls. Occasionally. But overall they are very low risk medium investment high return. They are a good unit, we all see that. But then let us replace the plasma with melta. All of a sudden they become much worse. Because they have even less reliability (D6 damage), they cost even more than they did previously.

That is the biggest problem is that much of the offensive and defensive stats of the game are focused on scaling point wise LINEARLY. Higher quality units have much less room for error as they get more expensive because you throw less dice. Quality should rise just a bit faster as points for a model goes up. Terminators suffer from this still. As do Knights, Riptides, Eldar Wraith units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This leads into the other side of the issue where a high-quality model is nigh on unkillable, like we saw in 6th, 7th, and to a lesser extent 8th with Primarchs.

 skchsan wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Obviously if platform is better for weapon it should be more pricey than same weapon on other platform. That's what I have been saying. Or on alternative example let's imagine squad of assault marines with lascannons. Obviously this unit needs to cost more than devastators as it is useful to have jump packs on devastators it's still losing efficiency on the model as you have lascannon(weapon that wants to stand still) on jump pack(you are paying for ability to move fast). So lascannon here should get discount(obviously not enough to make these cheapest lascannon platforms though)

But see here, what your suggestion ends up doing is penalizing certain units for being good at what they're designed to be good at... and which they pay extra points for in their base cost in the first place.

Lowering the weapon points option for 'underperforming' units doesn't scale the same way upwards - if you want to equip melee weapons on assault oriented unit, you'd have to pay more those weapons? So they pay extra points, like how scions pay extra for hotshot lasguns and grav chuts vs vets, AND THEN they pay extra for the weapons because they're good at using it?

What I'm trying to get at is that if a mechanic can't/doesn't scale/work for rest of the game, it shouldn't be utilized.

The idea is that a Guard Infantry Squad vs a Guard Veteran Squad vs a Scion Squad vs a Tactical Marine Squad don't necessarily get the same usage out of the same weapons. What is garbage for one might be fantastic for another, and vise versa. If each individual unit gets a price tailored to it for each piece of equipment based on how good/bad it is for them, you will see a swing to "below average - average - above average", rather than say "garbage - bad -below average - average - above average - good - really good - autotake".

A squad of Scions can drop in and get a strong use out of a plasma gun with their good ballistic skill and ability to just show up risk free in double tap range. That same squad equipped with flamers will actually lower its killing power by a decent margin, as it drops in out of range entirely. Meanwhile, a squad of Guard Veterans, which are currently in a bit of a bad place, pay the same price as Scions for the same equipment, but have much less killing power - they either need to hoof it, or purchase a transport to get them where they need to be.

Tactical Marines are, at their very best, considered an "average" unit - even their strongest defenders don't mark them higher as that, and most see them as fairly useless. Would keeping the bodies expensive and making the upgrades cheaper make them more viable? And is a Power Sword in a Tactical Squad worth the same as a Power Sword in an Assault Marine Squad?

Nobody is saying that everything can be fixed overnight - but with lots of rejiggering, playtesting, and so on, individually costing out upgrades on a per unit basis can bring much more balance to the game.

Very broadly - across the meta - naked Guardsmen (and most other cheap chaff) are under costed or Marines are over costed. 13 points gives you pretty poor damage, and hardly exceptional "toughness" too, unless you can bag a cover save.

From a purely theoretical standpoint I can't think of any circumstances where I'd prefer 3 marines with plasma guns to 7 guardsmen with plasma guns. They would expect to do 75% more damage. To be fair you would expect to need 14% more bolter rounds to kill the marines - and 28% lasgun rounds - but then it swings dramatically the other way if you start throwing out plasma yourself (it takes 55% more regular plasma shots to kill the guardsmen than the marines).

 skchsan wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Yeah actually it used to be even worse resulting in IG captains paying same for their power fists that made them whopping S6(and being much less likely to survive to swing it) as marines that got to S8. But at least before codexes had format that could have supported it. Now system is one that would make ridiculous looking page

Then by that extension, power fists on marines should cost less than terminator power fists (because they can deepstrike), and power fists on assault marines should cost more than termie PF's since they can deepstrike AND move faster, thereby withstanding less shooting phases, to be more "likely to survive to swing it."

We're not saying that its unbalanced towards AM. We're saying this mechanism work singularly for the benefit of AM, and for no other armies - this isn't balance; it is bias.


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tneva82 wrote:
do you want some options to be worthless and others be too good so you can mathammer yourself advantage so that you can win the game before models are even deployed? Or do you want game to be decided on in game decisions?

If you believe mathhammer dictate the final outcome of the game even SOMETIMES, then obviously you haven't played enough games (no offense intended). The element of chance is real.

You are so full of garbage here, lol.

Look, for one thing, this doesn't only benefit guardsmen. As I've pointed out, Genestealer Cult gets identical rules for all their weapons, and still manage to be one of the weaker factions in the game.

Second, whether or not they actually call their weapons "plasma guns" or "melta guns" other factions do get access to very comparable weaponry on different base platforms, and they have variable pricing as well. Ork weaponry would be absurdly high value if you handed it to a space marine, which is pretty much how it's always been.

Moan about guard all you like, but at least be honest about the reasons that theyre strong.

You mean about the fact they have:
1. best WPP weapons
2. highest wound count in typical 2k pt army
3. highest model count per army
4. cheapest units
5. easiest to accrue most cp
6. most board control
7. most army wide strategems
8. most heavy weapons
9. most special weapons
10. discount heavy/special weapons
11. spammable buff auras/orders

No, I'm actually cool with that as long as they have 1 weakness. AM right now is puttingout "sword" in a game of rock paper scissors. They literally have 0 weakness a.k.a. the ONLY army you cant cripple in turn 1.

I understand tau codex hasnt been released yet to address all the absurd points they have right now - but army as a whole barring characters have bs 4 or worse, designed around the NECESSITY of marker lights. Why are they not priced at AMs range then?

How do you justify termagaunts, when they cost the same as a guardsmen, have worse Ld, worse guns, worse save, and have penalties if not within synapse? Cheap, spammable thing in the game usually has to be synergized with higher costed buffing characters.

AM is the only army that functions up to par with baseline due to sheer weight of dice, which then gets augmented further with the budget-most (if thats even a word) characters. AM literally is the only army you can double brigade without bringing absolutely garbage units (fast attacks are pretty garbage).But I digress.

I'm talking about AM specific bias the game currently has. Its not they're OP - the current mechanics of the game as a whole is biased towards AM (board coverage to deny deep strike, mitigation against multi damage weapons, fall back, almost negates morale, etc ). And if youre denying that fact, youre the one "so full of gabage here, lol."

There a too many factors to account for when assessing the value of a weapon. You think that durability is one, but the opponent's list is even more important, not to mention the scenario being played.
You can create a formula that gives the exact point cost a weapon? Probably. Is it practical for use? No.
GW decided to stop this formula at the first order, which is BS value, since it is always the most important parameter influencing a weapon. That's the correct decision IMHO. Including successive orders would make it more and more cumbersome with little gain.

 skchsan wrote:
You mean about the fact they have:
1. best WPP weapons
2. highest wound count in typical 2k pt army
3. highest model count per army
4. cheapest units
5. easiest to accrue most cp
6. most board control
7. most army wide strategems
8. most heavy weapons
9. most special weapons
10. discount heavy/special weapons
11. spammable buff auras/orders

No, I'm actually cool with that as long as they have 1 weakness. AM right now is puttingout "sword" in a game of rock paper scissors. They literally have 0 weakness a.k.a. the ONLY army you cant cripple in turn 1.

I understand tau codex hasnt been released yet to address all the absurd points they have right now - but army as a whole barring characters have bs 4 or worse, designed around the NECESSITY of marker lights. Why are they not priced at AMs range then?

How do you justify termagaunts, when they cost the same as a guardsmen, have worse Ld, worse guns, worse save, and have penalties if not within synapse? Cheap, spammable thing in the game usually has to be synergized with higher costed buffing characters.

AM is the only army that functions up to par with baseline due to sheer weight of dice, which then gets augmented further with the budget-most (if thats even a word) characters. AM literally is the only army you can double brigade without bringing absolutely garbage units (fast attacks are pretty garbage).But I digress.

I'm talking about AM specific bias the game currently has. Its not they're OP - the current mechanics of the game as a whole is biased towards AM (board coverage to deny deep strike, mitigation against multi damage weapons, fall back, almost negates morale, etc ). And if youre denying that fact, youre the one "so full of gabage here, lol."

Zero weaknesses, which is why when you look at who's winning at recent tournaments (https://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2017/12/19/top-itc-tournament-lists-november-2017/) you see....a pretty even spread of the factions that are known to be good between Space Marines, Sisters, Chaos Marines, Chaos Daemons, Eldar, Tyranids, and Astra Militarum.

Keep in mind this data is pre chapter-approved and pre BA/DA, the biggest thing up in the air in the competitive scene is how much will chapter approved put the kibosh on chaos soup lists.

I made a post calling you out for just wildly and blindly latching onto anything that would allow you to nerf AM, regardless of whether it's actually fair or the right way to go about it, and you respond with...just insanity, I don't know. AM is generally considered the strongest single faction in the game, but if there was "AM specific bias" in the game design, you probably wouldn't see them relatively equally represented among the competitive factions in tournament play, and you probably wouldn't see every release where they got rules changes post-codex being pretty much nothing but nerfs.

It's difficult to respond to what you've put forward here because so much of it is just so incomprehensible. AM is the only faction in the game that wins with weight of dice? What is alpha legion bezerkers+Oblits? What is competitive green tide orks? What is tyranid alpha strike? tons of competitive factions win with weight of dice. Do you actually think things like "The most special weapons" and "Cheapest units" are actually indicators of competitiveness (disregarding the fact that both of those are actually wrong, see: codex Eldar, brimstone horrors, etc)?

The major AM weaknesses are generally considered to be assault alpha strike and negative to-hit modifiers, which is again pretty self evident and obvious if you take a look at what you see run against them competitively.

The summation of your point here seems to just be listing random rules in the game. AM "Almost entirely mitigates morale" by..what exactly? Being able to add 1 to the leadership of their squads? You know we've got factions with army-wide fearless and army-wide old commissar rule, right? What mitigation against multi-damage weapons? As far as I know, AM don't have anything that reduces the amount of damage that multi damage weapons do. Fall back? I guess, it certainly doesn't benefit AM quite as much as one of the armies that has almost everything with the Fly rule, that's for sure.

Show me on the doll where the bad man put his basilisk, I guess. AM are a great army right now. I'm not sure how that equates to a sinister GW conspiracy, but that seems to be somewhat of the consensus on the forums here, bizarrely enough. You do you.

Yeah, AM are pretty powerful right now. But, at the top levels of competitive play, they're fairly well-spread, sprinkled among other strong lists, now and again taking 1st, other times yielding first.

The reason I think AM seems to be the strongest faction is because of a factor I call "WAAC-ness".

In the history of 40k, tournament armies used to be pretty "WAAC-y" - in other words, there were identifiable builds that were 100% optimal but not very lore-appropriate or even reasonable from any standpoint other than winning. Take a look at some of the Chaos superfriends lists: Aetos'rau'kheres, Magnus, and Mortarion all at the same battle and even in the same detachment at 2k points (not anymore but you'll see my point). That's identifiably WAAC.

What Guard have done is taken a reasonably built army, and then shown up at the top tables with it and won. This means you can't scream WAAC at the tournament players, and you can't accuse a player playing it locally of playing to win. It's a fun & fluffy list that also happens to be strong - which means it removes that awkward "social pressure" element to conform; i.e., it is possible to play in a manner that a CAAC player might approve of, and still have a very strong winning list. I don't think some CAAC players know how to handle it, and won't change their lists, so they default to hating the codex.

It seems like youre misunderstanding the point of this post.

The thread is about the fallacy of the system of balancing through adjustment of weapon costs based on the platforms effectiveness with the weapon. Particular example of this is the BS3 plasma/melta vs BS4 plasma/melta example - which so happens to occur in AM.

Typically, a units performance is built into its PPM. That is to say, the PPM is indicative of the units performance. Similarly, (although very poorly translated from 7th to 8th) weapons too, are priced accordingly to its stats - range, number of shots, weapon type, strength, & AP).

Now, lets take the BS based weapon cost into play, with an example we have. For the purpose of this example, we'll set BS4 as the baseline case.
If BS4 plasma costs 7 points, and BS3 plasma gun costs 13. Here we see roughly 186% increase in cost from BS4 to BS3. Now lets apply the same rate of increase to different BS values.

BS6 = [Cost of plasma gun @ BS5] / 186% ~ 2 points (-71% from base)
BS5 = [Cost of plasma gun @ BS4] / 186% ~ 4 points (-46% from base)
BS4 = 7
BS3 = [Cost of plasma gun @ BS4] x 186% ~13 points (+86% from base)
BS2 = [Cost of plasma gun @ BS3] x 186% ~24 points (+245% from base)

Meltagun: 17 / 12 = 1.42

BS6 = [Cost of meltagun @ BS5] / 142% ~ 6 points (-50% from base)
BS5 = [Cost of meltagun @ BS4] / 142% ~ 8 points (-29% from base)
BS4 = 12
BS3 = [Cost of meltagun @ BS4] x 142% ~17 points (+42% from base)
BS2 = [Cost of meltagun @ BS3] x 142% ~24 points (+101% from base)

Excuse the example as it cannot take into account for all of the complex equation that goes into determining a point value of a model. But here we see that adjusting a weapon cost according to the BS of the platform, we see an exponential rise to the cost of the weapon as BS improves, while BS remains a linearly increasing stat.

Again, I emphasize, that BS cannot be the only stat that is taken into consideration - but also then serves as a support for my argument - due to the complexity required to "balance out the game" via adjusting point cost of weapons based on the platform performance, the point cost system for weapons and models should remain separated.

Please don't make this into another "UHMURGUSH, NOT ANOTHER AM IS OP THREAD" thread.
I thank you in advance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In alternative calculation, applying a linear point reduction if you're unsatisfied that BS based scale shouldn't be that of exponential one:

Plasmagun: 86% increase ~6 pt
BS6 = [Cost of plasma gun @ BS5] - 86% ~ -5 points (-171% from base)
BS5 = [Cost of plasma gun @ BS4] - 86% ~ 1 points (-86% from base)
BS4 = 7
BS3 = [Cost of plasma gun @ BS4] + 86% ~13 points (+86% from base)
BS2 = [Cost of plasma gun @ BS3] + 86% ~19 points (+171% from base)

Meltagun: 42% increase ~5 pt
BS6 = [Cost of meltagun @ BS5] - 42% ~ 2 points (-83% from base)
BS5 = [Cost of meltagun @ BS4] - 42% ~ 7 points (-42% from base)
BS4 = 12
BS3 = [Cost of meltagun @ BS4] - 42% ~17 points (+42% from base)
BS2 = [Cost of meltagun @ BS3] - 42% ~22 points (+83% from base)

Scaling weapon cost per platform isn't a working solution.

I understand your maths, I just don't see the point of why you posted it? What point were you trying to make by demonstrating a linear function is a linear function and an exponential function is an exponential function?

 skchsan wrote:
Again, I emphasize, that BS cannot be the only stat that is taken into consideration - but also then serves as a support for my argument - due to the complexity required to "balance out the game" via adjusting point cost of weapons based on the platform performance, the point cost system for weapons and models should remain separated.

If your point is that compounding stuff makes stuff more complicated all I can say is I'd rather have something complicated and balanced than simple and unbalanced.

The issue with your argument is that It assumes that those points costs are correctly balanced, and it assumes that the difference in points cost must be adjusted by the same amount for each BS increase/decrease.

But if we look at the effectiveness of a plasma gun rapid firing.

BS 6 = 0.33 hits = 50% decrease on BS 5
BS 5 = 0.67 hits = 33% decrease on BS 4
BS 4 = 1 hit
BS 3 = 1.33 hits = 133% increase on BS 4
BS 2 = 1.67 hits = 125% increase on BS 3

SO if BS 4 is 7 points maybe the correct points would be

BS 6 = 5 * .5 = 3 points
BS 5 = 7 * .67 = 5 points
BS 4 = 7 points
BS 3 = 7 * 1.33 = 9 points
BS 2 = 9 * 1.25 = 11 points

Or if we assume that 7 and 13 are the correct prices but that the increases decreases beyond that are done as a matter of change in effectiveness. You might end up with

BS 6 = 2
BS 5 = 4
BS 4 = 7
BS 3 = 13
BS 2 = 18

In the end though more than just BS should determine the price of the weapon.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I understand your maths, I just don't see the point of why you posted it? What point were you trying to make by demonstrating a linear function is a linear function and an exponential function is an exponential function?

That it's a system that favors quantity as "quality" units have exponentially higher cost of bringing "better weapons." If you get 'point reductions because you have BS4', then logically it should be able to be applied as 'increase because you have BS2'. It's a non-uniform application of a mechanic for the sake of "balance."

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
If your point is that compounding stuff makes stuff more complicated all I can say is I'd rather have something complicated and balanced than simple and unbalanced.

My point isn't to say to not balance the game. As posted earlier, having a BS4 plasma costing only 7 pt doesn't break the game. It is a commentary that discounting weapons based on the platform characteristic is a fallacious rationale.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:
The issue with your argument is that It assumes that those points costs are correctly balanced, and it assumes that the difference in points cost must be adjusted by the same amount for each BS increase/decrease.

But if we look at the effectiveness of a plasma gun rapid firing.

BS 6 = 0.33 hits = 50% decrease on BS 5
BS 5 = 0.67 hits = 33% decrease on BS 4
BS 4 = 1 hit
BS 3 = 1.33 hits = 133% increase on BS 4
BS 2 = 1.67 hits = 125% increase on BS 3

SO if BS 4 is 7 points maybe the correct points would be

BS 6 = 5 * .5 = 3 points
BS 5 = 7 * .67 = 5 points
BS 4 = 7 points
BS 3 = 7 * 1.33 = 9 points
BS 2 = 9 * 1.25 = 11 points

Or if we assume that 7 and 13 are the correct prices but that the increases decreases beyond that are done as a matter of change in effectiveness. You might end up with

BS 6 = 2
BS 5 = 4
BS 4 = 7
BS 3 = 13
BS 2 = 18

In the end though more than just BS should determine the price of the weapon.

This is a good point.

But it leads back to the issue of performance already being paid for in the PPM. A guardsmen costs 4 pt because of its stats, marines cost 13 pt because, captains because... etc.

I feel that adjusting weapon cost because of model performance is double dipping, in both directions (cheaper units, cheaper weapons; expensive units, expensive weapons).

Whilst I understand the logic of weapon costing less for models who can benefit from it less (especially in case of power fists, where the strength is affected along with to-hit). I have to question whether this should be applied to plasma. Due how the overcharge rules work, cheap plasma on cheap model is deceptively good, as you can overchage with impunity, risking to lose very little.

 skchsan wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I understand your maths, I just don't see the point of why you posted it? What point were you trying to make by demonstrating a linear function is a linear function and an exponential function is an exponential function?

That it's a system that favors quantity as "quality" units have exponentially higher cost of bringing "better weapons." If you get 'point reductions because you have BS4', then logically it should be able to be applied as 'increase because you have BS2'. It's a non-uniform application of a mechanic for the sake of "balance."

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
If your point is that compounding stuff makes stuff more complicated all I can say is I'd rather have something complicated and balanced than simple and unbalanced.

My point isn't to say to not balance the game. As posted earlier, having a BS4 plasma costing only 7 pt doesn't break the game. It is a commentary that discounting weapons based on the platform characteristic is a fallacious rationale.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:
The issue with your argument is that It assumes that those points costs are correctly balanced, and it assumes that the difference in points cost must be adjusted by the same amount for each BS increase/decrease.

But if we look at the effectiveness of a plasma gun rapid firing.

BS 6 = 0.33 hits = 50% decrease on BS 5
BS 5 = 0.67 hits = 33% decrease on BS 4
BS 4 = 1 hit
BS 3 = 1.33 hits = 133% increase on BS 4
BS 2 = 1.67 hits = 125% increase on BS 3

SO if BS 4 is 7 points maybe the correct points would be

BS 6 = 5 * .5 = 3 points
BS 5 = 7 * .67 = 5 points
BS 4 = 7 points
BS 3 = 7 * 1.33 = 9 points
BS 2 = 9 * 1.25 = 11 points

Or if we assume that 7 and 13 are the correct prices but that the increases decreases beyond that are done as a matter of change in effectiveness. You might end up with

BS 6 = 2
BS 5 = 4
BS 4 = 7
BS 3 = 13
BS 2 = 18

In the end though more than just BS should determine the price of the weapon.

This is a good point.

But it leads back to the issue of performance already being paid for in the PPM. A guardsmen costs 4 pt because of its stats, marines cost 13 pt because, captains because... etc.

I feel that adjusting weapon cost because of model performance is double dipping, in both directions (cheaper units, cheaper weapons; expensive units, expensive weapons).

Personally I would not factor BS into the base model much at all, and instead factor it into the gun. If you don't have a gun having BS 2+ is pretty meaningless, same if the only gun you have an option to take is say a las pistol. Guns are actually pretty easy to do this for. Melee weapons are harder because attacks, strength, and WS matter.

The issue with the idea is that they already paid for those stats is hard argue because there are models with identical stats that cost different points, and points are not really granular enough to balance out slight differences. There are also things that cause issues like multiple weapons being taken in single squads. Right now in this game offense is king and so adding a lot of value for stats that are less important causes balance swings. For instance look at sucide kill squads. If I want a squad to drop in kill something and then expect to die, am I better off with 5 terminators, or 5 guardsman assuming they have the exact same weapons. (Theoretical units) The terminators are going to cost me 200 ish points (10 BS 3 plasma shots), the guardsman will cost me say 60 (10 BS 4 plasma shots). So the actual comparison is do I want those 5 terminators or 15 guardsman or 10 BS 3 shots vs 40 BS 4 shots. What if I could take deepstriking marines for 140 points, now we are looking at 10 guardsman or 5 marines. If I assume all these models are going to die, then isn't better damage output the most desirable thing?

 skchsan wrote:
It is a commentary that discounting weapons based on the platform characteristic is a fallacious rationale.

except its not, and we have the proof of previous editions where IG infantry units were perennially left on the shelf because they could never provide reasonable value relative to both internal and external counterparts when they paid the same price as Space Marines for equipment. The value of a weapon absolutely changes depending on its context, the basic platform doesn't cover its value in all contexts, and there's a reason weapons have had different costs on different units in many editions (albeit inconsistently, as is the case now too). All we're really quibbling about is where GW drew the line in this case.

The economic concepts of utility and marginal value are just as much at work here as anywhere else, and context really does matter. If you give an AR15 to a 12 year old child conscript, the marginal value of that rifle to the fighting force is less than if it were given to a trained and veteran 25 year old. The acquisition cost of the rifle is the same, but the value to the fighting force is dramatically different depending on who wields it. There's a reason why people not in fighting roles get less expensive and less capable weapons like handguns, the added investment in a full sized fighting weapon doesn't add proportional value, regardless of the absolute value of the weapon. Same reason armies built around short service conscripts produce weapons like the AK or G3, simple, inexpensive and easy to produce weapons that have the ergonomics of a brick, while armies built around professional long term volunteers have more expensive weapons that their troops are able to get more marginal value out of. If you get a sweet new long range designated marksmans rifle, you give it to the best shot in the unit, where it provides the best value, it's dramatically less effective (and thus has a lower value) in the hands of the worst shot in the unit (who may otherwise cost as much to equip, train, feed, etc and who may be functionally as capable with automatic burst fire from an assault rifle at human sized targets a hundred meters away as anyone else). That's not just an issue of the original platform, the weapon's value is very much contextual relative to its platform.

The Plasma Caliver can pretty much only be considered a straight upgrade over a Plasma Gun any day, it is available on a platform superior to a base guardsman in ballistic skill and defenses.

Does this mean the game system is unfairly biased towards admech? Frick no. Weapon options are priced the way they are to provide the game designers a balance lever to adjust them up and down without messing with the base cost of the model. If a unit or option is overpowered, its cost should be increased for that unit or option.

The only reason that people in this thread are complaining about the pricing of the guard plasma gun and the space marine plasma gun and not the space marine plasma gun and the plasma caliver is that it's easier to point at something with the same name and yell "this is unfair!" It's just as meaningless to argue that the space marine and Tau plasma guns should have the same price because they have the same names as well.

Cue another half page off topic rant about how this system should be slapped onto all armies because guard is overpowered.

the_scotsman wrote:
The Plasma Caliver can pretty much only be considered a straight upgrade over a Plasma Gun any day, it is available on a platform superior to a base guardsman in ballistic skill and defenses.

Does this mean the game system is unfairly biased towards admech? Frick no. Weapon options are priced the way they are to provide the game designers a balance lever to adjust them up and down without messing with the base cost of the model. If a unit or option is overpowered, its cost should be increased for that unit or option.

The only reason that people in this thread are complaining about the pricing of the guard plasma gun and the space marine plasma gun and not the space marine plasma gun and the plasma caliver is that it's easier to point at something with the same name and yell "this is unfair!" It's just as meaningless to argue that the space marine and Tau plasma guns should have the same price because they have the same names as well.

Cue another half page off topic rant about how this system should be slapped onto all armies because guard is overpowered.

It is about a break even with a plasma gun (better from 12-18, worse 18-24, but can advance and shoot) maybe slightly better, and costs the same as a BS 3 plasma gun. The space marine plasma gun has the same cost the plasma caliver for basically an equivalent gun. IT also has no easy way to get into range, so not necessarily better.

the_scotsman wrote:
The Plasma Caliver can pretty much only be considered a straight upgrade over a Plasma Gun any day, it is available on a platform superior to a base guardsman in ballistic skill and defenses.

Does this mean the game system is unfairly biased towards admech? Frick no. Weapon options are priced the way they are to provide the game designers a balance lever to adjust them up and down without messing with the base cost of the model. If a unit or option is overpowered, its cost should be increased for that unit or option.

As stated, weapons with same stats but with different names can cost the same, namely Plasma Caliver and Plasma Talons. Ravenwing Black Knight's (RBK) plasma talons require a bit of calculation to isolate the point cost of the weapon as it's built into the unit cost. We can deduce from its stats that:

RBK = SM Bike + Vet upgrade (+1A, +1Ld) + Plas Talon + Corvus Hammer (a flavor of power weapon: a power maul with -1S but with crit component)

Where:

RBK = 46 pts
Bike = 25 pts
Vet upgrade = Vet PPM (16 pt) - Marine PPM (13 pt) = 3 pts

Now we'll assume that Corvus hammer is just a flavor of power weapons and:
Corvus Hammer = Flavor of power maul = 4 pts

Solving for cost of plasma talon:

Plasma Talon = RBK - Bike - Vet upgrade - CH = 46 - 25 - 3 - 4 = 14 pts

Here we see the consistency that GW put forth that the cost is the same for weapons that does the same thing albeit with different names, despite the fact that RBK's are without a doubt far superior unit, because he has already paid 25 more points for it.

the_scotsman wrote:
The only reason that people in this thread are complaining about the pricing of the guard plasma gun and the space marine plasma gun and not the space marine plasma gun and the plasma caliver is that it's easier to point at something with the same name and yell "this is unfair!" It's just as meaningless to argue that the space marine and Tau plasma guns should have the same price because they have the same names as well.

Cue another half page off topic rant about how this system should be slapped onto all armies because guard is overpowered.

The reason why guardsmen and marines are compared is because of BS3/BS4 plasmagun platform discussion. Your example of Rangesr vs Guardsmen isn't a good apples-to-apple comparison because it digresses from the BS based weapon point adjustments.

Now, taking the Tau's Plasma Rifle vs Guardsmen's Plasmaguns, where both Crisis and Guardsman has BS4
Plasmagun: 24"/Rapid Fire 1/S7(8)/AP-3/D1(2) @ 7 pts
Plasma Rifle: 24"/Rapid Fire 1/S6/AP-3/D1 @ 11 pts.

Clearly the plasma rifle is worse than AM BS4 plasma gun even at standard profile, and yet it's 4 points higher.

Again, this isnt about how "OP AM is right now" discussion. It just happens so that this particular mechanic is applied only for AM only, which I find a bit odd.
Do I think the 'value of the weapon' is different per platform? Yes, absolutely. Does the point system in the game reflect the 'value of the weapon'? No, I think it reflects the 'acquisition cost' of the weapon.

Would you equip a foot slogging dev squad with multimeltas if you're not going to buy them a droppod? Not likely, because its potentials would be wasted if not dropped at its melta range to get its mileage out.

The Tau Plasma Rifle, IIRC, is only available on T4 3+sv multiwound Jet suits with an array of abilities and Deep Strike potential, as opposed to being run on T3 single wound 5+sv footslogging infantry. Again, different platforms, different value.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The Tau Plasma Rifle, IIRC, is only available on T4 3+sv multiwound Jet suits with an array of abilities and Deep Strike potential, as opposed to being run on T3 single wound 5+sv footslogging infantry. Again, different platforms, different value.

Different platform, different value of weapon, same cost of acquisition.
The same rifle isn't more expensive for an expert shooter than it is for a novice.

 skchsan wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The Tau Plasma Rifle, IIRC, is only available on T4 3+sv multiwound Jet suits with an array of abilities and Deep Strike potential, as opposed to being run on T3 single wound 5+sv footslogging infantry. Again, different platforms, different value.

Different platform, different value of weapon, same cost of acquisition.
The same rifle isn't more expensive for an expert shooter than it is for a novice.

no but its *value* is different, which is what is reflected in points costs.

And when armies are looking to equip large numbers of novice shooters, they opt for cheap weapons that provide all the value those novice shooters are capable of, and splurge when equipping professional troops that are capable of getting use out of more expensive weapons.

 Vaktathi wrote:
no but its *value* is different, which is what is reflected in points costs.

oF THE PLATFORMS. Not the weapon. Crisis cost 10.5 times more than guardsmen because they have higher UNIT VALUE.

 Vaktathi wrote:
And when armies are looking to equip large numbers of novice shooters, they opt for cheap weapons that provide all the value those novice shooters are capable of, and splurge when equipping professional troops that are capable of getting use out of more expensive weapons.

So conscripts get the salvation army plasmaguns?

Skchsan, what you say is right for units that have just one weapon options.

But when units have many weapons options it falls apart. You can't put the cost of how powerfull a model is with X weapon, if it can change that weapon for many other weapons that aren't as good for that model as they are for others.

 skchsan wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
no but its *value* is different, which is what is reflected in points costs.

oF THE PLATFORMS. Not the weapon. Crisis cost 10.5 times more than guardsmen because they have higher UNIT VALUE.

the units base points cost covers some of that, not all of it. It doesn't cover all the possible combinations of wargear which have wildly different values depending on what the platform is capable of. The base cost does not encompasse the entire value of the platform, as that value changes depending on what it is equipped with. GW didn't get super granular with this, but acknowledged its a thing on army wide scales.

 Vaktathi wrote:
And when armies are looking to equip large numbers of novice shooters, they opt for cheap weapons that provide all the value those novice shooters are capable of, and splurge when equipping professional troops that are capable of getting use out of more expensive weapons.

So conscripts get the salvation army plasmaguns?

To use a real world example, we can look at the much abused AK vs AR comparison. The AR has a nicer trigger, this allows shots taken with care to more accurate. The recoil is directly in line with the bore and the shooters shoulder, whereas on an AK it is not, making follow up shots with the AR easier. The AR has faster and more convenient safety and magazine release mechanisms. As a result, an experienced shooter can run a course of fire a couple of seconds faster with an AR than with an AK, whereas a conscript would probably do about the same with either. The AR has a higher marginal value for the professional soldier, but isnt really any better for the conscript, its value to the professional soldier over the AK is greater than that of the conscript, so if you were making a game where such things mattered, you'd make the points for the AR higher for the professional soldiers than the AK, but both would be about the same for the conscript (and is why professional military forces pay $600-1200 for guns like AR's or CZ Bren805's or SCARs or whatnot over $150-250 Izhmash AK's). Now, in a game at 40k's scale, these details are irrelevant (they'd all just be autoguns), but it paints the picture well enough. It's not just the platform, these things compound each other.


Same reason for several editions that Independent Characters paid more for wargear than unit characters like Sergeants (reference the 3.5E CSM codex), those Independent Characters got significantly more value out of that wargear. This was flattened to reduce complexity of army writing, but was absolutely a valid concept.

To use another non-weapon example, a Rosarius that gives a 4+ invul save would have more value on a W6 model than a W1 model. The Rosarius isn't different, but it's got a whole lot more value and people will be willing to pay more to buy it on the W6 model than on the W1 model.

 skchsan wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
no but its *value* is different, which is what is reflected in points costs.

oF THE PLATFORMS. Not the weapon. Crisis cost 10.5 times more than guardsmen because they have higher UNIT VALUE.

They also have a bit higher mobility, firepower, and more options.

 Vaktathi wrote:
And when armies are looking to equip large numbers of novice shooters, they opt for cheap weapons that provide all the value those novice shooters are capable of, and splurge when equipping professional troops that are capable of getting use out of more expensive weapons.

So conscripts get the salvation army plasmaguns?

Sure...if Conscripts got access to anything but Lasguns...

 skchsan wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The Tau Plasma Rifle, IIRC, is only available on T4 3+sv multiwound Jet suits with an array of abilities and Deep Strike potential, as opposed to being run on T3 single wound 5+sv footslogging infantry. Again, different platforms, different value.

Different platform, different value of weapon, same cost of acquisition.
The same rifle isn't more expensive for an expert shooter than it is for a novice.

In real life money terms that's true, but in a war game for the sake of balance the number of points an upgrade costs needs to depend on how well that model can use it.

Lets take an extreme example of a really really awesome upgrade weapon. The weapon is an upgrade to 3 units that are normally armed with some really crappy weapon.

Unit 1 hits on a 6+ and costs 3pts.

Unit 2 hits on a 4+ and costs 6pts.

Unit 3 hits on a 2+ and costs 12pts.

Lets imagine they're well balanced because their other stats compensate for any discrepancy in points, but they still fill a similar battlefield role as a rank and file troop (ie. none are fancy flankers or anything weird). Using unit 2 as a baseline Unit 1 is 50% the cost and Unit 3 is 200% the cost.

Now, you add the superduper weapon. Because it's so awesome, lets say it costs 100pts.

Unit 1 now costs 103pts.

Unit 2 now costs 106pts.

Unit 3 now costs 112pts.

Unit 1 is now 97% the cost of our baseline unit (unit 2) and unit 3 is 106%.

End result? Balance be crap because Unit 3 is capable of hitting 67% more often than Unit 2 but only costs 6% more. Unit 3 misses 67% of the time that Unit 2 would have otherwise hit, but only costs 3% less.

In this world Unit 1 = Unit 2 = Unit 3 in terms of value in their base setup, but when given their weapon option Unit 3 > Unit 2 > Unit 1 because whatever discrepancies in their base cost (that made them balanced in their base setup) is dwarfed by the cost of the weapon, so their costs when upgraded become proportionally very similar but their effectiveness varies wildly.

In real life you'd just give the better weapon to the person who's better at wielding it, but real life is not balanced and wargames hopefully should be.

That's an extreme example of a very expensive weapon, but it applies to all weapons just to varying amounts.

Believe me, I am fully aware of the differing "value of the weapon" per platform. But is this not precisely what goes into consideration when you're list building?

Why would you spend 100 pts into a unit that cannot utilize to its potential, instead when, you can invest it into units that can?

Unfortunately, there's always a limit to balancing the game, and some units will always be better than others for a particular reason. Some platforms will be garbage for certain weapons, some may not even have a 'below average' load out. Some units are so terrible no matter how you equip it, its better left on the shelf as a decoration - a DAMN shame, but that's the fact. This is a decision that needs to be made when you're building your list.

You can't just simply give out weapons at discount for lesser units just because they get less mileage out of them.

 skchsan wrote:

You can't just simply give out weapons at discount for lesser units just because they get less mileage out of them.

Hmm... why? Because "reasons"? Or because "Well, someone has to suck"?

If you are gonna give a weapon option to a unit that is totally useless, don't even bother, don't give that unit the option to take that weapon. You should try to balance all options in a unit, for them to be all usefull in its own context and way. If a Terminator can go with a PowerFist+Storm Bolter or two Lighting Claws it should be balanced to use both of them. If for that, the power fist needs to be cheaper for a Terminator than for a Character, etc... so then it should be.

 skchsan wrote:
Believe me, I am fully aware of the differing "value of the weapon" per platform. But is this not precisely what goes into consideration when you're list building?

Why would you spend 100 pts into a unit that cannot utilize to its potential, instead when, you can invest it into units that can?

Unfortunately, there's always a limit to balancing the game, and some units will always be better than others for a particular reason. Some platforms will be garbage for certain weapons, some may not even have a 'below average' load out. Some units are so terrible no matter how you equip it, its better left on the shelf as a decoration - a DAMN shame, but that's the fact. This is a decision that needs to be made when you're building your list.

You can't just simply give out weapons at discount for lesser units just because they get less mileage out of them.

....why? That would seem to be a good way to ensure you avoid at least a systemic imbalance. An ideal situation would be for every single unit to have their own costs for the weapons they can take, accounting for the quality of the platform and the mileage they're going to get out of the weapon.

A less ideal situation would be what we have now - some units getting discounts and others not.

It would seem like a step backward to go to where we were before. Your argument is that we should do that because...reasons?

The only reason I can think of is that you don't trust GW to balance it and it's better to go with the devil you know and just accept that it's going to be imbalanced across the system. Just price according to stats and a big shoota costs the same as a space marine heavy bolter.

 skchsan wrote:
Believe me, I am fully aware of the differing "value of the weapon" per platform. But is this not precisely what goes into consideration when you're list building?

Why would you spend 100 pts into a unit that cannot utilize to its potential, instead when, you can invest it into units that can?

Unfortunately, there's always a limit to balancing the game, and some units will always be better than others for a particular reason. Some platforms will be garbage for certain weapons, some may not even have a 'below average' load out. Some units are so terrible no matter how you equip it, its better left on the shelf as a decoration - a DAMN shame, but that's the fact. This is a decision that needs to be made when you're building your list.

You can't just simply give out weapons at discount for lesser units just because they get less mileage out of them.

Except they can, have done so in previous editions, and do so now. This is not a complicated concept. In fact, adjusting cost based on value is the fundamental premise of points based game design...

We can argue about where GW drew the line, and do that until the end of time, but the fundamental concept is sound and valid, both in the game and the real world, and we have problems from previous editions that were made manifest when such was not taken into consideration.

Again, basic economic theories of marginal value and utility apply just as validly here as anywhere else.

The issue is that you don't like where they drew the line, but the fundamental and inherent idea that something has different value in different context and should have its reflected value adjusted accordingly is not incorrect or wrong.

Again, nobody would argue that buying a 4+ invul save for a W6 model over a W1 model is more valuable and should.cost more. Why is it such an issue with weapons?

the_scotsman wrote:
A less ideal situation would be what we have now - some units getting discounts and others not.

The only reason I can think of is that you don't trust GW to balance it and it's better to go with the devil you know and just accept that it's going to be imbalanced across the system. Just price according to stats and a big shoota costs the same as a space marine heavy bolter.

I suppose this is why I'm so against this - a system like this is never fully implemented across the board and always just selectively, in however way GW chooses to do so.

Just look at how orks & tau's are priced right now - two bare minimum deffkoptas are only 8 points cheaper than a dakkajet? They're already having so much trouble balancing out the points for units themselves. Just imagine what happens if they try to balance the weapon cost concurrently, but not baked into the units costs.

 skchsan wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
A less ideal situation would be what we have now - some units getting discounts and others not.

The only reason I can think of is that you don't trust GW to balance it and it's better to go with the devil you know and just accept that it's going to be imbalanced across the system. Just price according to stats and a big shoota costs the same as a space marine heavy bolter.

I suppose this is why I'm so against this - a system like this is never fully implemented across the board and always just selectively, in however way GW chooses to do so.

Just look at how orks & tau's are priced right now - two bare minimum deffkoptas are only 8 points cheaper than a dakkajet? They're already having so much trouble balancing out the points for units themselves. Just imagine what happens if they try to balance the weapon cost concurrently, but not baked into the units costs.

What's so funny to me is that the people like you who are so incredibly against increased granularity in the rules system are usually the ones who scoff the loudest at the idea of concepts like Narrative Play and Open Play. If you are so much better at deciding what's balanced than GW, just...take the option to decide that for yourself?

If you view Matched Play as more balanced overall than Narrative Play (and I'm not saying you do, this is a hypothetical) then how would decreasing the granularity through standard weapon costs help and not hurt the level of balance in the game?

You keep claiming this isn't another "guard are so op" thread but in reality, that is the reason the subject here has been chosen. Guard is overpowered, and some of their units and weapons choices are almost certainly undercosted. But just like nerfing the Vanquisher cannon or the Banewolf would do absolutely nothing to improve balance or reduce the imbalance (despite the fact that there would be many people crowing about any guard nerfs at all), blindly setting any weapon the guard can take to the same point cost that space marines pay for it would do absolutely nothing at all as well.

All the weapons that fit into that category that are actually a problem (melta guns, plasma guns) are already set to marine points values... and they're STILL a problem. All the other weapons (heavy bolters, multi-meltas, heavy and normal flamers, autocannons, lascannons, missile launchers) are in pretty much no way a balance problem. You'd just be swinging the nerfbat randomly at something guard-shaped and yelling "SURELY THIS WILL HELP! SURELY THE GUARD LISTS COMPOSED OF STORMSWORDS AND NAKED INFANTRY AND MORTAR TEAMS AND BASILISKS WILL BE HINDERED BY THIS EFFORT!"

Really? Is this a thing?

I guess there is a good reason for this.

 skchsan wrote:
Believe me, I am fully aware of the differing "value of the weapon" per platform. But is this not precisely what goes into consideration when you're list building?

Why would you spend 100 pts into a unit that cannot utilize to its potential, instead when, you can invest it into units that can?

Because otherwise you end up with cookie cutter armies where one option is obviously the best and anything else is shooting yourself in the foot. It promotes min-maxing rather than varied builds.

Just because stuff is more balanced doesn't mean you don't have to take things into consideration when you build your army. You might have an option of taking weapon X on a fast flanker or a rank and file, either option might be viable in the right circumstances but in the wrong circumstances picking the wrong one will put you at a disadvantage.

Army building becomes more nuanced instead of "well unit X is obviously better than unit Y because both units can take weapon Z and unit X uses it better for a negligible difference in points".

You also have that the optimal unit may not actually be one in your army, e.g. taking a powerfist in an IG army, if an IG powerfist costs the same as a Space Marine power fist then there is no option in the IG list where a powerfist is actually worth taking. If Ork weapons were priced as if Space Marines were wielding them they'd suck because they'd be overpriced, likewise why should IG have to have their weapons priced as if Space Marines were using them?

IG are paying to little to exist, not too little for their weapons. A guardsmen is a 5 or even 6 pt model, not 4. That's the problem. 5+ armor is non-trivial in 8th. Eventually, GW will fix this after players keep relentlessly spamming guardsmen in tournaments. And everything indirect in IG needs to cost a lot more too. Or have a built-in -1 to hit. That fixes most of the problems. Their direct fire is not so bad.

Martel732 wrote:
IG are paying to little to exist, not too little for their weapons. A guardsmen is a 5 or even 6 pt model, not 4. That's the problem. 5+ armor is non-trivial in 8th. Eventually, GW will fix this after players keep relentlessly spamming guardsmen in tournaments. And everything indirect in IG needs to cost a lot more too. Or have a built-in -1 to hit. That fixes most of the problems. Their direct fire is not so bad.

Of course, Guard are actually a threat now so the logical answer is to nerf them into the ground instead of thinking up ways to fight them.

True story: there are no weapons that are cost effective against guardsmen except maybe some nid weapons. Guard are more than a threag. They are an autotake in any soup list and are autowin vs power armor lists.

Martel732 wrote:
True story: there are no weapons that are cost effective against guardsmen except maybe some nid weapons. Guard are more than a threag. They are an autotake in any soup list and are autowin vs power armor lists.

True story:
You're wrong.

Martel732 wrote:
True story: there are no weapons that are cost effective against guardsmen except maybe some nid weapons.

Choppas?

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
IG are paying to little to exist, not too little for their weapons. A guardsmen is a 5 or even 6 pt model, not 4. That's the problem. 5+ armor is non-trivial in 8th. Eventually, GW will fix this after players keep relentlessly spamming guardsmen in tournaments. And everything indirect in IG needs to cost a lot more too. Or have a built-in -1 to hit. That fixes most of the problems. Their direct fire is not so bad.

Of course, Guard are actually a threat now so the logical answer is to nerf them into the ground instead of thinking up ways to fight them.

You've literally said you were happy Guard were broken. Who are YOU to tell anybody to L2P?

 davou wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
True story: there are no weapons that are cost effective against guardsmen except maybe some nid weapons.

Choppas?

No, you misunderstand, by "no weapons" he means "bolters don't auto-kill them on threes anymore and I am sad" and by "auto win against power armor" he means "has a significant advantage against specifically loyalist marines and particularly melee-focused loyalist marines, which I do not like."

Otherwise he wouldn't be ignoring things like the fairly favorable matchups sisters of battle, khorne CSM, and Death Guard have against the standard guard gunline funline lists.

You really think those lists matchup favorably? Okay....

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
IG are paying to little to exist, not too little for their weapons. A guardsmen is a 5 or even 6 pt model, not 4. That's the problem. 5+ armor is non-trivial in 8th. Eventually, GW will fix this after players keep relentlessly spamming guardsmen in tournaments. And everything indirect in IG needs to cost a lot more too. Or have a built-in -1 to hit. That fixes most of the problems. Their direct fire is not so bad.

Of course, Guard are actually a threat now so the logical answer is to nerf them into the ground instead of thinking up ways to fight them.

You've literally said you were happy Guard were broken. Who are YOU to tell anybody to L2P?

Correction: I said I honestly didnt care any more. The 40+ whine threads about how OP Guard are broke my will to actually give a damn.
What does piss me off though is the hypocrisy. I notice that in 6th and 7th any time a Guard player made a thread about how weak Guard where it was instantly drowned by Marine, Tau and Eldar (mainly Marine though) players telling the Guard players to stop whining and just get good and learn to play properly, usually accompanied by ludicrous army suggestions like "2 blob platoons with 2 psykers and 2 priests and 2 commissars". Now that the Imperial Guard are actually powerful enough to compete on an even footing with Marines, Eldar and Tau we have thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread [repeat ad infinitum] entitled "IG are OP" OMG, IG are broken" "IG too powerful", etc, all these countless threads devoted to screaming about how the Imperial Guard are too powerful and filled with tales regaling the reader with magic volley blocks of Schrodinger's conscripts deleting entire armies in a single shooting phase whilst also being perfectly positioned to screen the back line units against charges and also being deployed in a way to prevent deepstriking and always having every model within 12" and los of all enemy units on the board. Or gunlines of LRBT that delete anything short of a titan in a single shot, and yet are always too far away to be shot at or charged. Or magical terrain that vanishes in the IG players shooting phase, but always fills the board in the opponents turn, preventing movement or shooting....
In other words, angry threads by angry posters filled with butthurt whining about how they actually have to treat Imperial Guard armies as a threat now, instead of a easy-meat joke to make their e-peen feel good.

On a side note the only Guard army that is worth taking at the moment is the Conscript volley block backed up by Manticore artillery. To players like myselves whom run fluffy armies with other themes (such as my own mobile Grenadiers list) there is nothing. Our armies are still weak and still struggle against the stupidly powerful units out there. But thats okay right? After all why should Guard be able to win?

Martel732 wrote:
You really think those lists matchup favorably? Okay....

I mean...they do. They're a solid counter-meta choice when you know you're going to be facing a ton of guardsmen. They exist at top tourney tables pretty much because of the excellent matchup with a basic guard gunline, especially the 'zerkers. I just did a batrep here (https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/747135.page) which pretty much shows what happens when even a comparatively casual alpha strike list hits a guard gunline. I could have done the exact same thing I did with the GSC acolyte unit with a big 15 man squad of death company and achieved the exact same results, if not even better results because I could have just popped a pile in and attack again stratagem to finish off the tank, second infantry squad, and bracket the basilisks right off the bat. Zerkers would have done it for the low, low price of no CPs.

Just take a read through the top lists cropping up on bloodofkittens, you'll see a good deal of lists that get to the top three off the shoulders of how common the matchup vs the standard guard gunline.

InB4 "what, only 60 infantry? Only three basilisks? only four primaris psykers and company commanders? Why in my meta, guard lists take no less than 300 infantry, sixteen basilisks, fifty-two mortar HWTs and 8 stormswords at 2000 points!"

I just watched a guy infiltrate 5 admech units and still lose to the infantry wall.

60 infantry is actually understandable with that many pskers.

Martel732 wrote:
I just watched a guy infiltrate 5 admech units and still lose to the infantry wall.

60 infantry is actually understandable with that many pskers.

I am unsurprised, given that the most commonly infiltrated amech units are either sicarians, which are generally overpriced and have no good way to get into combat, or dragoons, which are an anti-tank weapon primarily. if you had a weapon that was both S8 D2 and points efficient against guardsmen, you'd probably have yourself a broken weapon.

If you luck out and get the infiltrators into combat, they're great, but you're unlikely to because you've only got the 1d reroll from command reroll and to make them worthwhile you have to shoot with them as well, which probably means your opponent gets to remove models that you're trying to charge at and make your 9" roll even harder.

Scotsman, do you play EVERY faction in 40k?

pismakron wrote:
Scotsman, do you play EVERY faction in 40k?

darn close! I've been playing pretty much continuously for 15 years, and I've also inherited a couple of armies from friends and relatives.

I have all the eldar except for the new ynnari guys, guard, Genestealer Cultists (which share a lot of the guard stuff), admech, Thousand Sons with a few tzeentch buddies, and orks.

I know a bunch of people who own like 10,000 points of marines or chaos or whatever, but I have about 14,000 points of everything that I find interesting.

the_scotsman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I just watched a guy infiltrate 5 admech units and still lose to the infantry wall.

60 infantry is actually understandable with that many pskers.

I am unsurprised, given that the most commonly infiltrated amech units are either sicarians, which are generally overpriced and have no good way to get into combat, or dragoons, which are an anti-tank weapon primarily. if you had a weapon that was both S8 D2 and points efficient against guardsmen, you'd probably have yourself a broken weapon.

If you luck out and get the infiltrators into combat, they're great, but you're unlikely to because you've only got the 1d reroll from command reroll and to make them worthwhile you have to shoot with them as well, which probably means your opponent gets to remove models that you're trying to charge at and make your 9" roll even harder.

I think he was using a thing like alpha legion or raven guard. They got to fully act the first turn.

 davou wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
True story: there are no weapons that are cost effective against guardsmen except maybe some nid weapons.

Choppas?

Ork boyz are effective against Guardsmen if you run them there. What is true though, is that any attack which is S3 AP0 or better kills tactical marines more efficiently than Guardsmen. At 4 ppm Guardsmen are simply too durable to deal with for many factions. For various reasons my faction, Orks, deal with Guard a lot better than most.

Regards

 master of ordinance wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
IG are paying to little to exist, not too little for their weapons. A guardsmen is a 5 or even 6 pt model, not 4. That's the problem. 5+ armor is non-trivial in 8th. Eventually, GW will fix this after players keep relentlessly spamming guardsmen in tournaments. And everything indirect in IG needs to cost a lot more too. Or have a built-in -1 to hit. That fixes most of the problems. Their direct fire is not so bad.

Of course, Guard are actually a threat now so the logical answer is to nerf them into the ground instead of thinking up ways to fight them.

You've literally said you were happy Guard were broken. Who are YOU to tell anybody to L2P?

Correction: I said I honestly didnt care any more. The 40+ whine threads about how OP Guard are broke my will to actually give a damn.
What does piss me off though is the hypocrisy. I notice that in 6th and 7th any time a Guard player made a thread about how weak Guard where it was instantly drowned by Marine, Tau and Eldar (mainly Marine though) players telling the Guard players to stop whining and just get good and learn to play properly, usually accompanied by ludicrous army suggestions like "2 blob platoons with 2 psykers and 2 priests and 2 commissars". Now that the Imperial Guard are actually powerful enough to compete on an even footing with Marines, Eldar and Tau we have thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread [repeat ad infinitum] entitled "IG are OP" OMG, IG are broken" "IG too powerful", etc, all these countless threads devoted to screaming about how the Imperial Guard are too powerful and filled with tales regaling the reader with magic volley blocks of Schrodinger's conscripts deleting entire armies in a single shooting phase whilst also being perfectly positioned to screen the back line units against charges and also being deployed in a way to prevent deepstriking and always having every model within 12" and los of all enemy units on the board. Or gunlines of LRBT that delete anything short of a titan in a single shot, and yet are always too far away to be shot at or charged. Or magical terrain that vanishes in the IG players shooting phase, but always fills the board in the opponents turn, preventing movement or shooting....
In other words, angry threads by angry posters filled with butthurt whining about how they actually have to treat Imperial Guard armies as a threat now, instead of a easy-meat joke to make their e-peen feel good.

On a side note the only Guard army that is worth taking at the moment is the Conscript volley block backed up by Manticore artillery. To players like myselves whom run fluffy armies with other themes (such as my own mobile Grenadiers list) there is nothing. Our armies are still weak and still struggle against the stupidly powerful units out there. But thats okay right? After all why should Guard be able to win?

I'd have to dig, but you directly said it, and with people quoting you as such.

And nobody here told you Guard was OP. What we told you was how to make the lists slightly more effective so your games could be a lot closer. Some of the advice was solid (running more Divination Psykers) and some of the advice was admittedly hot garbage (Jancoran's frickin Deathstar). You didn't want to listen to any of the good advice though.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
IG are paying to little to exist, not too little for their weapons. A guardsmen is a 5 or even 6 pt model, not 4. That's the problem. 5+ armor is non-trivial in 8th. Eventually, GW will fix this after players keep relentlessly spamming guardsmen in tournaments. And everything indirect in IG needs to cost a lot more too. Or have a built-in -1 to hit. That fixes most of the problems. Their direct fire is not so bad.

Of course, Guard are actually a threat now so the logical answer is to nerf them into the ground instead of thinking up ways to fight them.

You've literally said you were happy Guard were broken. Who are YOU to tell anybody to L2P?

Correction: I said I honestly didnt care any more. The 40+ whine threads about how OP Guard are broke my will to actually give a damn.
What does piss me off though is the hypocrisy. I notice that in 6th and 7th any time a Guard player made a thread about how weak Guard where it was instantly drowned by Marine, Tau and Eldar (mainly Marine though) players telling the Guard players to stop whining and just get good and learn to play properly, usually accompanied by ludicrous army suggestions like "2 blob platoons with 2 psykers and 2 priests and 2 commissars". Now that the Imperial Guard are actually powerful enough to compete on an even footing with Marines, Eldar and Tau we have thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread [repeat ad infinitum] entitled "IG are OP" OMG, IG are broken" "IG too powerful", etc, all these countless threads devoted to screaming about how the Imperial Guard are too powerful and filled with tales regaling the reader with magic volley blocks of Schrodinger's conscripts deleting entire armies in a single shooting phase whilst also being perfectly positioned to screen the back line units against charges and also being deployed in a way to prevent deepstriking and always having every model within 12" and los of all enemy units on the board. Or gunlines of LRBT that delete anything short of a titan in a single shot, and yet are always too far away to be shot at or charged. Or magical terrain that vanishes in the IG players shooting phase, but always fills the board in the opponents turn, preventing movement or shooting....
In other words, angry threads by angry posters filled with butthurt whining about how they actually have to treat Imperial Guard armies as a threat now, instead of a easy-meat joke to make their e-peen feel good.

On a side note the only Guard army that is worth taking at the moment is the Conscript volley block backed up by Manticore artillery. To players like myselves whom run fluffy armies with other themes (such as my own mobile Grenadiers list) there is nothing. Our armies are still weak and still struggle against the stupidly powerful units out there. But thats okay right? After all why should Guard be able to win?

I'd have to dig, but you directly said it, and with people quoting you as such.

And nobody here told you Guard was OP. What we told you was how to make the lists slightly more effective so your games could be a lot closer. Some of the advice was solid (running more Divination Psykers) and some of the advice was admittedly hot garbage (Jancoran's frickin Deathstar). You didn't want to listen to any of the good advice though.

If noone is screaming IG OP then why do we have this plus several dozen more threads about how overpowered Guard are?
If you are talking about the previous editions threads then I will reiterate the points made then: Sure, Div psykers where a useful unit, even if they did go against the fluff of some units, but they where far less efficient than the equivalents that other factions had. Take the Librarian for instance, for about 20 points more you got an extra level in power, +1 WS, S, T, A, W and I and +2 BS and LD, gained a 3+ armour save with the options to increase it to 2+ and gain a 5++ or 3++ invun save for not much more, gained a better gun, gained that weird hood thingy and gained access to the conclave formation of brokeness. You went from being a squishy model that had to be kept away from the fighting or you would die to a model that could walk into the fray and deal some mean damage out whilst tanking a few hits. It was an absurd boost in power for what it cost, and the benefits from Divination where even more useful on Marine units anyway. At the end of the day Guard players where still eft with overpriced chimeras carrying melta vets, ocr priced LRBT's and prayers.

That was literally LAST EDITION. Now we are talking about this edition, where IG are clearly a above and beyond performing index before the codex; where in the codex they got was nearly nothing but buffs.

Now they are nerfed but still WELL above the rest of the codices out. Eldar? People were poking fun at me for Fire Prisms being able to fire twice, why wasn't I "crying op?", well that's because they were overpriced by a LARGE margin and now are just slightly overpriced. LRBT? Overpriced by a small amount everyone agreed on that, now incredibly efficient in addition to their tactics. But I don't even talk about the LRBT because there is so much other BS.

Go on, ignore everyone saying Rob G. is bs, that Morty and Maggy should (EDIT) NOT be able to be in the same army, keep on deriding the lower tier codices. Keep on focusing on yourself.

How DOES Tau handle AM? They are very weak right now, it is not surprising they struggle against a better army in literally every way.

Why are ranged weapons cheaper for AM? It is very odd that BS pricing only affects IG, whereas such a difference doesn't exist in other books. Does that mean BS2+ characters in other books are underpaying for special weapons in other books? Or does it mean they are overpaying because the weapon is balanced for BS3+? It is a perfectly good point.

A new player's army was annihilated by IG! He is asking what's up, no harm in that. Was he outplayed or just overpowered?

Sly Marbo doesn't have his points cost yet! How dare they, ffs GW how dare you listen to the players about a favorite character.

How to fix cheesing; a poorly thought out way of "fixing" the game. End of story

There IS NO "several dozen threads".

The salt in this thread over the IG is reaching critical mass.

In serious though, the IG are the current "WAAC army of choice" due to easily abused units, rules, items etc. I play IG and I'm fully aware on how ludicrous you can make an army. But I have more sense than that. I'd rather have a game where me and my opponent felt we can win, rather than cheesing my way to victory.

But, if you want to cheese, then please play against other cheese WAAC lists. Leave us sensible players to play each other rather than 500000 plasma gun lists.

I think we are blowing the "IG are OP" out of proportion here.
If you look at the last 18 top 3s recorded for ITC, there is ONE AM list (and it's a smite spam list). Hardly meta breaking.

Powerful? Sure, but in 8th edition there is stuff much worse than AM.

Spoletta wrote:
I think we are blowing the "IG are OP" out of proportion here.
If you look at the last 18 top 3s recorded for ITC, there is ONE AM list (and it's a smite spam list). Hardly meta breaking.

Powerful? Sure, but in 8th edition there is stuff much worse than AM.

I think the high power of the IG codex is less of an issue in the competitive scene, where people are going to be specifically building to try and circumvent its capabilities/allying in IG units for those capabilities, than in the more casual environments.

Because so much of the IG codex is good (as in effective at the role it is designed for at a reasonable cost, even if it isn't the most cost-effective option in the codex), it is a lot easier for someone building an army from that codex to end up with a powerful force, even if they aren't a minmax master. With other armies, such as Tau, the choice of those "good but not the best in the codex" units is massively smaller. Such armies can't throw together an effective list with as little effort as Guard can, you often have to take the best units to even have a chance of competing with a Guard B-team list.

That means that is a well designed codex with consistent and balanced internal power. That's not OP, alaitor Dark Reapers are OP since they can be spammed effectively and trample any other eldar option.

Spoletta wrote:
That means that is a well designed codex with consistent and balanced internal power. That's not OP, alaitor Dark Reapers are OP since they can be spammed effectively and trample any other eldar option.

Actually, if the weaker choices of a codex are better/as good as the best choices from another, then it certainly is overpowered relative to those weaker codices/indices. It is possible to be well designed internally whilst also terribly designed externally.

If all of the choices of a codex are good, it has good internal balance. If all of those choices are better than the choices available to every other army and for less cost, it has terrible external balance.

Though that is not the case, many codici can reach the power level of AM, though they have limited option if they want to do that, while AM (and to some extend Tyranids) can play around and still have a good list.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The Tau Plasma Rifle, IIRC, is only available on T4 3+sv multiwound Jet suits with an array of abilities and Deep Strike potential, as opposed to being run on T3 single wound 5+sv footslogging infantry. Again, different platforms, different value.

T5, not T4. Also available in Broadsides.