The complaint right now is how useless the Conscripts are compared to Guardsman. So how about bringing the Guardsmen to 5 points per model and give them some special rule? What in hell do Ork Boyz cost 6 pts per model? They should be overwhelming the Guards with sheer number, not the other way around.

I think Guardsmen at 5 with no other changes to them and boyz at 6 is pretty fair. This is from someone who plays both armies

A lot of people are for 5pt guardsmen, including guard players. However, as is expected, there are many who think 4pt guard is fine.
Kanluwen should be along shortly to tell you why 5pt guard is bad.

bibotot wrote:
What in hell do Ork Boyz cost 6 pts per model? They should be overwhelming the Guards with sheer number, not the other way around.

Then you'll need to buff IG stats, because currently that 4-point guardsman is worse than the ork at everything except the 5+ armor save (remember, the ork has a better gun to offset BS 5+). If boyz are overwhelming them with numbers they'd have to be more like space marine level in stats to justify a 10-15 ppm cost.

 Peregrine wrote:

bibotot wrote:
What in hell do Ork Boyz cost 6 pts per model? They should be overwhelming the Guards with sheer number, not the other way around.

Then you'll need to buff IG stats, because currently that 4-point guardsman is worse than the ork at everything except the 5+ armor save (remember, the ork has a better gun to offset BS 5+). If boyz are overwhelming them with numbers they'd have to be more like space marine level in stats to justify a 10-15 ppm cost.

Well that or give everything (that isn't a Marine ) a points bump to fix the issue.

If comparison to orks is your reasoning, how about you just wait until the codex comes out first?

 Colonel Cross wrote:
If comparison to orks is your reasoning, how about you just wait until the codex comes out first?

Yeah, it's hard to say what position Boyz will be in when the Codex drops. Maybe they'll get a lot better. Maybe they'll go up in points. Maybe both. Maybe neither.


As far as Orks overwhelming Guard through numbers, I never thought a Guardsman was supposed to be significantly better than your average Ork Boy. Better at certain things, yes, but not better overall. I always figured a trained "normal" human soldier and an Ork Boy were roughly evenly matched.

The Orks often overwhelm the Guard through numbers in the novels, but that's because they're frequently conducting frontal assaults on fortified positions. In game terms that would be like the Imperium side having as many points in fortifications as regular models.

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:

 Colonel Cross wrote:
If comparison to orks is your reasoning, how about you just wait until the codex comes out first?

Yeah, it's hard to say what position Boyz will be in when the Codex drops. Maybe they'll get a lot better. Maybe they'll go up in points. Maybe both. Maybe neither.


As far as Orks overwhelming Guard through numbers, I never thought a Guardsman was supposed to be significantly better than your average Ork Boy. Better at certain things, yes, but not better overall. I always figured a trained "normal" human soldier and an Ork Boy were roughly evenly matched.

The Orks often overwhelm the Guard through numbers in the novels, but that's because they're frequently conducting frontal assaults on fortified positions. In game terms that would be like the Imperium side having as many points in fortifications as regular models.

keep in mind if we pointed by commonality in the novels a Necron warrior would be Imperial Guardsman cheap

I thought we were talking about pointing them based on effectiveness, and having the effectiveness be somewhat inline with what it is in the fluff. If we're talking about pointing them based on how common they are in-universe I'm going to have to wheel around a big 55 gallon drum full of .001 point greenskins and use a shovel to speed up deployment.

Insert standard caveat about how points have to be somewhat flattened for the sake of gameplay because if every Space Marine was like they are in the books they'd individually be Lords of War. (I do wish regular Space Marines had a more elite stat line though.)

Something to keep in mind is ig army and ig soup. Point up doesn#t really hurt soup that much but that's how ig is effectively run. Pure ig, already mid pack, would be massacred.

Problem is in soup. Fix that rather than gw style bandaid and ignore real problem like the stupid max 3 datasheet one

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:

 Colonel Cross wrote:
If comparison to orks is your reasoning, how about you just wait until the codex comes out first?

Yeah, it's hard to say what position Boyz will be in when the Codex drops. Maybe they'll get a lot better. Maybe they'll go up in points. Maybe both. Maybe neither.


As far as Orks overwhelming Guard through numbers, I never thought a Guardsman was supposed to be significantly better than your average Ork Boy. Better at certain things, yes, but not better overall. I always figured a trained "normal" human soldier and an Ork Boy were roughly evenly matched.

The Orks often overwhelm the Guard through numbers in the novels, but that's because they're frequently conducting frontal assaults on fortified positions. In game terms that would be like the Imperium side having as many points in fortifications as regular models.

Exactly - Orks overwhelm guard with numbers because there are lots of orks and they tend to mass for assaults, not because one guardsman is significantly better than one ork which is what would need to be the case if that numerical superiority was to be reflected in points.

I play my friend often and he brings tau fire warriors shooting str5 30" and with buff giving 3 shots at 15" for 7 points per model. if my guard went up to 5 points... you gotta be kidding.

tneva82 wrote:
Something to keep in mind is ig army and ig soup. Point up doesn#t really hurt soup that much but that's how ig is effectively run. Pure ig, already mid pack, would be massacred.

Problem is in soup. Fix that rather than gw style bandaid and ignore real problem like the stupid max 3 datasheet one

Thus is just plain wrong, by math (Theres no point efficient way to kill guardsmen) and by analisis of the meta: Guard is the third strongest monofaction of the game after Drukhari and CWE.
All Imperial Soup armies NEED the guard cp farm to work. Remove it and Soup will die, and Guard will go up again because there would bee no more Imperial or Chaos soup to have it check in place.

Guard infantry should go to 5ppm, Firewarriors and Skitarii Rangers to 8ppm, and Kabalites and Ork boyz post codex (unless their sinergies are nerfed some other way) should be 7ppm.
And make Necron Warriors 10ppm with BS4+ now that you are at it.

Nemesis234 wrote:
I play my friend often and he brings tau fire warriors shooting str5 30" and with buff giving 3 shots at 15" for 7 points per model. if my guard went up to 5 points... you gotta be kidding.

That buff is from a basically mandatory 42pt charictor for a faction that doesn't have soup options. They also have no CC ability at all, Tau should be outshooting guardsmen as they will loose to guardsmen in CC.
Also Tau and Admech are still placing behind mono guard at tournaments

 Galas wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Something to keep in mind is ig army and ig soup. Point up doesn#t really hurt soup that much but that's how ig is effectively run. Pure ig, already mid pack, would be massacred.

Problem is in soup. Fix that rather than gw style bandaid and ignore real problem like the stupid max 3 datasheet one

Thus is just plain wrong, by math (Theres no point efficient way to kill guardsmen) and by analisis of the meta: Guard is the third strongest monofaction of the game after Drukhari and CWE.
All Imperial Soup armies NEED the guard cp farm to work. Remove it and Soup will die, and Guard will go up again because there would bee no more Imperial or Chaos soup to have it check in place.

Guard infantry should go to 5ppm, Firewarriors and Skitarii Rangers to 8ppm, and Kabalites and Ork boyz post codex (unless their sinergies are nerfed some other way) should be 7ppm.
And make Necron Warriors 10ppm with BS4+ now that you are at it.

Was gonna chime in to say this but you beat me to it. Most of the other bottom end units need a look over on their points, not just Guardsmen. Changing one but not the others just removes an item from the choices of what to spam, much like how Conscripts disappeared overnight after getting nerfed. If Guardsmen get nerfed enough without say Skitarii seeing it, you'll just start seeing units of Skitarii escorting a single Enginseer on every battlefield for a 145 point Battalion.

Its the problem with 8th that after the initial indices, most codices have seen points drop, bringing us back to a race to the bottom.

kurhanik wrote:

Was gonna chime in to say this but you beat me to it. Most of the other bottom end units need a look over on their points, not just Guardsmen. Changing one but not the others just removes an item from the choices of what to spam, much like how Conscripts disappeared overnight after getting nerfed. If Guardsmen get nerfed enough without say Skitarii seeing it, you'll just start seeing units of Skitarii escorting a single Enginseer on every battlefield for a 145 point Battalion.

Its the problem with 8th that after the initial indices, most codices have seen points drop, bringing us back to a race to the bottom.

A battalion is 2HQs and 3 troops. Minimum cost for a skitarii battalion is 199 points. 2x 47 for the enginseers and 3x35 for the three groups of 5 basic rangers. Even if guardsmen went up a point each that battalion would probably be better in most instances since they get so much more board control (32 bodies rather than 17). But as someone who plays skitarii I wouldn't be heartbroken if they went up a point I guess.

tneva82 wrote:
Something to keep in mind is ig army and ig soup. Point up doesn#t really hurt soup that much but that's how ig is effectively run. Pure ig, already mid pack, would be massacred.

Problem is in soup. Fix that rather than gw style bandaid and ignore real problem like the stupid max 3 datasheet one

Pure IG middle of the pack? They were the best army both taken standalone and in soup context from ITC July 2018 Rankings....pfffff

Dandelion wrote:A lot of people are for 5pt guardsmen, including guard players. However, as is expected, there are many who think 4pt guard is fine.
Kanluwen should be along shortly to tell you why 5pt guard is bad.

That guy argued himself into a corner in the last thread he tried that in and then basically stopped responding. If he restarts it in here instead of responding to the counter arguments he'd already been given, then he should probably be infracted for just trolling at that point.

Ice_can wrote:

Nemesis234 wrote:
I play my friend often and he brings tau fire warriors shooting str5 30" and with buff giving 3 shots at 15" for 7 points per model. if my guard went up to 5 points... you gotta be kidding.

That buff is from a basically mandatory 42pt charictor for a faction that doesn't have soup options. They also have no CC ability at all, Tau should be outshooting guardsmen as they will loose to guardsmen in CC.
Also Tau and Admech are still placing behind mono guard at tournaments

This. Looking at the army as a whole, AM does not need 4 pt Guardsmen. Hell, us Tau might not even need 7 pt Firewarriors, but lets take this step at a time.

 Peregrine wrote:

bibotot wrote:
What in hell do Ork Boyz cost 6 pts per model? They should be overwhelming the Guards with sheer number, not the other way around.

Then you'll need to buff IG stats, because currently that 4-point guardsman is worse than the ork at everything except the 5+ armor save (remember, the ork has a better gun to offset BS 5+). If boyz are overwhelming them with numbers they'd have to be more like space marine level in stats to justify a 10-15 ppm cost.

I'm sorry, a 18' range assault 2 S4 weapon is better then a range 24 S3 weapon? yeah I mean in a complete vacuum it is, right up until you realize IG get a number of shooting buffs and orkz get exactly zero.

30 Boyz at range 18 get 60 shots, 20 hits and against IG get about 13 wounds, IG get a 5+ save and you end up with 8-9 dead guard. IG at 24 get 45 shots, 22.5 hits and 7 wounds for 6 dead Orkz, add in the orders and shooting buffs and it gets even more lopsided really quickly. But yeah, sure, in a complete vacuum, devoid of points and anything else that matters a S4 weapon is better then a S3 weapon.

If guard troops are so awesome why guard isn't dominating tournaments but instead are 32 guy cp batteries instead...whoo! 32 guys. 30pts more for competive armies to buy. Super awesome guard troops that competive armies bring bare minimum required.

Some guys here are still in year old meta it seems. Maybe refresh up a bit. Guard has fallen way off except for min battallion for cp with maybe few mortars

tneva82 wrote:
If guard troops are so awesome why guard isn't dominating tournaments but instead are 32 guy cp batteries instead...whoo! 32 guys. 30pts more for competive armies to buy. Super awesome guard troops that competive armies bring bare minimum required.

Some guys here are still in year old meta it seems. Maybe refresh up a bit. Guard has fallen way off except for min battallion for cp with maybe few mortars

I love when people just blurt out some colossally ignorant statements like this without having done any fact checking first.

BAO, one of the biggest 40k events of the year, just finished last weekend. The #1 army on the top tables was Guard. This is EXCLUDING the CP batteries, and pretending that they aren't also taking 3 full units of Guardsmen, for the sake of this argument. Of the top 10, 3 were Guard primaries, already more than any other army (with 3 MORE armies taking Guard as allies). Hell, the amount of Guard Primaries in the top 10 alone, outnumbered every other army even going back to top 20.

Of those top 3 Guard players, the two higher placing ones got there by maxing out on Guardsmen.




It's time to admit you didn't really verify any of what you just said before blurting it out off emotion.

tneva82 wrote:
If guard troops are so awesome why guard isn't dominating tournaments but instead are 32 guy cp batteries instead...whoo! 32 guys. 30pts more for competive armies to buy. Super awesome guard troops that competive armies bring bare minimum required.

Some guys here are still in year old meta it seems. Maybe refresh up a bit. Guard has fallen way off except for min battallion for cp with maybe few mortars

Guard is not dominating tournamebts because... Oh wait they are even against soup. Theres not many tournaments out there without a couple pure guard armies on top 10.

The harsh reality is that if you nerf soup as many "IG is not op, only cp bateries are" apologists want, then Guard (and drukhari) will become even more dominant. Pure Custodes and pure BA lists wont make the cut as they do now without souping. And imperial knights suffer a lot without IG support.

I think allied detachments should be nerfed. Needing to take a bunch of IG to make your army work solo, is just bad design. That being said, other adjustments need to go hand in hand,

The BAO results where just discussed by FLG and Guard where the onlu faction to have 3 primary detachments in the top 10.
More than craftworld or drukari individually. But less than aldari combined.

Guard are no slouch's in competitive settings. They are only kept in check by Aeldari cheesey Alitoc-2 or more to hit.

 Peregrine wrote:

bibotot wrote:
What in hell do Ork Boyz cost 6 pts per model? They should be overwhelming the Guards with sheer number, not the other way around.

Then you'll need to buff IG stats, because currently that 4-point guardsman is worse than the ork at everything except the 5+ armor save (remember, the ork has a better gun to offset BS 5+). If boyz are overwhelming them with numbers they'd have to be more like space marine level in stats to justify a 10-15 ppm cost.

Ork has a better gun to offset the bs5+. They do about the same damage when they shoot targets. The ork also has T4 to ofset the 6+ save - the main difference it has to pay for is more attacks. Honestly +1 attack is worth more than a 1 point difference. They also come in 30 man squads - which allows the unit to make most out of buffs.

5 point guardsmen is about the easiest change they can make to the game. They are clearly OP. Compare them to a 5 point termagant - they are better in every way except movement. They even beat 5 point hormagants in assault.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ice_can wrote:
The BAO results where just discussed by FLG and Guard where the onlu faction to have 3 primary detachments in the top 10.
More than craftworld or drukari individually. But less than aldari combined.

Guard are no slouch's in competitive settings. They are only kept in check by Aeldari cheesey Alitoc-2 or more to hit.

Yep - plus those mechanics are clearly unfair. Those mechanics ruin every shooting armies day. It's too bad they exist because outside of the -1 to hit shenanigans guard clearly blast everyone off the table.

 SHUPPET wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
If guard troops are so awesome why guard isn't dominating tournaments but instead are 32 guy cp batteries instead...whoo! 32 guys. 30pts more for competive armies to buy. Super awesome guard troops that competive armies bring bare minimum required.

Some guys here are still in year old meta it seems. Maybe refresh up a bit. Guard has fallen way off except for min battallion for cp with maybe few mortars

I love when people just blurt out some colossally ignorant statements like this without having done any fact checking first.

BAO, one of the biggest 40k events of the year, just finished last weekend. The #1 army on the top tables was Guard. This is EXCLUDING the CP batteries, and pretending that they aren't also taking 3 full units of Guardsmen, for the sake of this argument. Of the top 10, 3 were Guard primaries, already more than any other army (with 3 MORE armies taking Guard as allies). Hell, the amount of Guard Primaries in the top 10 alone, outnumbered every other army even going back to top 20.

Of those top 3 Guard players, the two higher placing ones got there by maxing out on Guardsmen.




It's time to admit you didn't really verify any of what you just said before blurting it out off emotion.

From the videos I watched (I do not have BCP so i could be wrong) none of those top guard lists were mono guard. While some were guard dominate they still included things like smash captains and jet bikes. While a guard "primary" army is obviously a majority of guard it is still not mono guard. I don't think anyone is arguing that guard+something is insanely strong. My concern is the continuous nerfing of guard because of their ability to be an insanely good option for soup, until people who play mono guard end up having a bottom tier army.

So a 2k list with 1.5k of guard isn't a guard list?

If your talking 800 points of 1 faction 700 of another and 500 og a third faction, thats not representative, but with 1.5k of a faction removing that 500 points of weakness covering isn't suddenly going to make the list uncompetitive as that 1.5k has to be doing a decent chunk of the work or it wouldn't be in a competitive list.

Ice_can wrote:
So a 2k list with 1.5k of guard isn't a guard list?

If your talking 800 points of 1 faction 700 of another and 500 og a third faction, thats not representative, but with 1.5k of a faction removing that 500 points of weakness covering isn't suddenly going to make the list uncompetitive as that 1.5k has to be doing a decent chunk of the work or it wouldn't be in a competitive list.

That 500 points is typically adding something that the IG does not have in its arsenal and something to channel the majority of CP into. Id argue that if IG was broken we would be seeing full 2k points of guard constantly. Once again correct me if I'm wrong but didn't 4 of the 5 top lists include knights? while they might not have been the majority in those lists does this not show that including a knight is just as key to having a winning list as including IG is? All these finishings keep seeming to highlight to me is that Army x+ Army y is very powerful as other then DE Im never really seeing mono factions at the top

No one plays mono guard because they can cover the armies weakness with allies. Why wouldn't you do that? It doesn't mean mono guard is bad. Mono guard is actually very strong. It just struggles against aliotoc.

Plus - like you said - it really just taking the most advantage of their command points as they can.

 Xenomancers wrote:
No one plays mono guard because they can cover the armies weakness with allies. Why wouldn't you do that? It doesn't mean mono guard is bad. Mono guard is actually very strong. It just struggles against aliotoc.

Plus - like you said - it really just taking the most advantage of their command points as they can.

I play 100% mono guard

Asmodios wrote:
While some were guard dominate they still included things like smash captains and jet bikes.

Not a single Guard list of the 3 that made top 3, included Custodes. 1 of the 3 included a jump captain.

If you admittedly have no idea what you are talking about, why immediately discount facts, with baseless and incorrect speculation?






Regardless, it's a nonsense argument anyway, as if we discount armies to take allies from the top tables, then NOBODY made top 10, and to the surprise of nobody, the most successful army in the tournament is Tau, all the way down near the bottom of the top 20, as the first army to place without taking an ally - because they cannot.



The statement was made about Guard not kicking ass in tournaments. That's demonstrably false unless you use absurd, arbitrary restrictions to cut the majority of the game, Guard included, out of the discussion.

The only sensible way to do it is looking at primarys.

 SHUPPET wrote:

Asmodios wrote:
While some were guard dominate they still included things like smash captains and jet bikes.

Not a single Guard list of the 3 that made top 3, included Custodes. 1 of the 3 included a jump captain.

If you admittedly have no idea what you are talking about, why immediately discount facts, with baseless and incorrect speculation?






Regardless, it's a nonsense argument anyway, as if we discount armies to take allies from the top tables, then NOBODY made top 10, and to the surprise of nobody, the most successful army in the tournament is Tau, all the way down near the bottom of the top 20, as the first army to place without taking an ally - because they cannot.



The statement was made about Guard not kicking ass in tournaments. That's demonstrably false unless you use absurd, arbitrary restrictions to cut the majority of the game, Guard included, out of the discussion.

The only sensible way to do it is looking at primarys.

So you are admitting that not a single one of those lists was mono guard..... So if guard infantry squads are the issue why aren't we seeing mono IG lists with 200 guardsmen just dominating. While you're saying I have no clue it sounds like what I heard on signals from the frontline and the long war are true. The top "IG" lists that made the top ten were guard with a knight and one guard with jetbikes. But not a single mono IG army did make the top 10. It seems that being able to take strong faction a + strong faction b is pushing out any list that doesnt do that and any army that cant.

 SHUPPET wrote:
I think allied detachments should be nerfed. Needing to take a bunch of IG to make your army work solo, is just bad design. That being said, other adjustments need to go hand in hand,

I agree with both of your statements. I was just saying that many people uses the "IG is only used for CP in soup" as a proof that IG isn't good but... they are just wrong.


And if you remove soups from the game, is not like IG hasn't Bullgryns to cover the loss of Jetbike Captains and Smash fester. Of course, they aren't that strong, no way, and IG would probably just take more artillery and infantry. But is an example of how IG can absolutely substitute what Jetbike and BA Captains do with their own units. But Blood Angels and Adeptus Custodes can't change what Imperial Guard provides for them if you remove soup.

" So if guard infantry squads are the issue why aren't we seeing mono IG lists with 200 guardsmen just dominating."
Because that is not how this works. Tau in 7th weren't a problem? Weren't they OP? And they didn't even won tournaments because Demons and Eldar where so busted. IG are in the same place.

Asmodios wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

Asmodios wrote:
While some were guard dominate they still included things like smash captains and jet bikes.

Not a single Guard list of the 3 that made top 3, included Custodes. 1 of the 3 included a jump captain.

If you admittedly have no idea what you are talking about, why immediately discount facts, with baseless and incorrect speculation?






Regardless, it's a nonsense argument anyway, as if we discount armies to take allies from the top tables, then NOBODY made top 10, and to the surprise of nobody, the most successful army in the tournament is Tau, all the way down near the bottom of the top 20, as the first army to place without taking an ally - because they cannot.



The statement was made about Guard not kicking ass in tournaments. That's demonstrably false unless you use absurd, arbitrary restrictions to cut the majority of the game, Guard included, out of the discussion.

The only sensible way to do it is looking at primarys.

So you are admitting that not a single one of those lists was mono guard..... So if guard infantry squads are the issue why aren't we seeing mono IG lists with 200 guardsmen just dominating. While you're saying I have no clue it sounds like what I heard on signals from the frontline and the long war are true. The top "IG" lists that made the top ten were guard with a knight and one guard with jetbikes. But not a single mono IG army did make the top 10.

Perhaps you missed the part where not a single mono-anything army made top 10. I'm not even sure that there was 10 players at that tournament with mono armies.

Unless you are outright saying right now that you think Tau and Tyranids are two most broken armies in the game right now, you need to reconsider your stance. Having the option to take Knights, Custodes, Captains, whatever else as the supporting core of your main army is not a NEGATIVE of your army, its one of their strengths. Primary factions, IG dominated, any other standards are just idiotic and do absolutely nothing to represent which armies are competitive right now. By your logic DE doesn't even exist right now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
I think allied detachments should be nerfed. Needing to take a bunch of IG to make your army work solo, is just bad design. That being said, other adjustments need to go hand in hand,

I agree with both of your statements. I was just saying that many people uses the "IG is only used for CP in soup" as a proof that IG isn't good but... they are just wrong.

I agree with all that you said too, I was mostly just expanding a little, to be clear. I chose not to quote you to try make it clearer that I wasn't directing my words as a counter to anything you said, my bad if it came across that way anyway though.

Nah, in the case of a misunderstanding on the internet put the blame always in the non-native speaker My fault!

[

Asmodios wrote:
[

Spoiler:

quote=SHUPPET 761590 10094566 0420dfac640419e1dd48e050ee0e6e96.jpg]

Asmodios wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

Asmodios wrote:
While some were guard dominate they still included things like smash captains and jet bikes.

Not a single Guard list of the 3 that made top 3, included Custodes. 1 of the 3 included a jump captain.

If you admittedly have no idea what you are talking about, why immediately discount facts, with baseless and incorrect speculation?






Regardless, it's a nonsense argument anyway, as if we discount armies to take allies from the top tables, then NOBODY made top 10, and to the surprise of nobody, the most successful army in the tournament is Tau, all the way down near the bottom of the top 20, as the first army to place without taking an ally - because they cannot.



The statement was made about Guard not kicking ass in tournaments. That's demonstrably false unless you use absurd, arbitrary restrictions to cut the majority of the game, Guard included, out of the discussion.

The only sensible way to do it is looking at primarys.

So you are admitting that not a single one of those lists was mono guard..... So if guard infantry squads are the issue why aren't we seeing mono IG lists with 200 guardsmen just dominating. While you're saying I have no clue it sounds like what I heard on signals from the frontline and the long war are true. The top "IG" lists that made the top ten were guard with a knight and one guard with jetbikes. But not a single mono IG army did make the top 10.

Perhaps you missed the part where not a single mono-anything army made top 10. I'm not even sure that there was 10 players at that tournament with mono armies.

Unless you are outright saying right now that you think Tau and Tyranids are two most broken armies in the game right now, you need to reconsider your stance. Having the option to take Knights, Custodes, Captains, whatever else as the supporting core of your main army is not a NEGATIVE of your army, its one of their strengths. Primary factions, IG dominated, any other standards are just idiotic and do absolutely nothing to represent which armies are competitive right now. By your logic DE doesn't even exist right now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
I think allied detachments should be nerfed. Needing to take a bunch of IG to make your army work solo, is just bad design. That being said, other adjustments need to go hand in hand,

I agree with both of your statements. I was just saying that many people uses the "IG is only used for CP in soup" as a proof that IG isn't good but... they are just wrong.

I agree with all that you said too, I was mostly just expanding a little, to be clear. I chose not to quote you to try make it clearer that I wasn't directing my words as a counter to anything you said, my bad if it came across that way anyway though.

Pure Guard player. Not a tournament goer. I think 5 ppm Guardsmen would be fine.

It would be a roughly 40 to 50 point increase in my typical list, I could swing that without any real problem. I think it would help balance IG / SM somewhat, which is good for most games I play.

It IS solely their fault as all the armies fall apart the moment you remove Guard.

Asmodios wrote:

You are now actively moving the goalpost. The orignial topic of the thread is that IG is broken because of 5point guard. I have pointed out that while 3 of the top 5 included guard 4 of the top 5 included knights. On top of this not a single IG army was mono. The evidence presented that
>the top 10 at BAO included a lot of guard
>IG must be broken
But if IG were truly broken you would be seeing not only mono IG but a high prevalence of said broken unit. Infantry can still be spammed so why aren't we seeing 200 IG infantry running around the field? On top of this we are seeing that knights are also included in almost all these top lists so why isn't the discussion "Knights are OP"
The only evidence presented seems to once again in 8th be that soup is broken which I fully agree and yes cheep IG contribute heavily to this. But considering the winning like included 0 IG but did need knights, it seems disingenuous to place the blame solely on IG

Wait, so you want to exclude Guard allied detachments as not counting towards the strength of Guard, but will include allied single-Knight detachments as contributing to the strength of Knights?

Wait, you think that that pointing out that Guard are doing really well in tournament, in direct response to someone claiming they are not, is somehow moving the goalposts, while you've come in here and made a bunch of arbitrary restrictions to suit your agenda, restrictions not at all present at tournaments, and restrictions that excludes 95% of the game, from this same discussion of what's doing well at tournaments?

Wait, you didn't see that the winning list won based off opponent resistance, and the Guard primary army also went undefeated?

Wait, you are claiming that I said Knights are fine based off absolutely nothing, even though I've spoken out about them in the past in topics relevant to them, just like I'm doing here in topics relevant to IG?




Stop posting for a couple of days, and spend the time thinking about what is motivating you to post like this. You are the walking definition of "moving the goalposts", and even when it comes to those moving nets you aren't being even remotely objective, you came in here downplaying Guard before you even knew what the lists were.

 SHUPPET wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

You are now actively moving the goalpost. The orignial topic of the thread is that IG is broken because of 5point guard. I have pointed out that while 3 of the top 5 included guard 4 of the top 5 included knights. On top of this not a single IG army was mono. The evidence presented that
>the top 10 at BAO included a lot of guard
>IG must be broken
But if IG were truly broken you would be seeing not only mono IG but a high prevalence of said broken unit. Infantry can still be spammed so why aren't we seeing 200 IG infantry running around the field? On top of this we are seeing that knights are also included in almost all these top lists so why isn't the discussion "Knights are OP"
The only evidence presented seems to once again in 8th be that soup is broken which I fully agree and yes cheep IG contribute heavily to this. But considering the winning like included 0 IG but did need knights, it seems disingenuous to place the blame solely on IG

Wait, so you want to exclude Guard allied detachments as not counting towards the strength of Guard, but will include allied single-Knight detachments as contributing to the strength of Knights?

Wait, you think that that pointing out that Guard are doing really well in tournament, in direct response to someone claiming they are not, is somehow moving the goalposts, while you've come in here and made a bunch of arbitrary restrictions to suit your agenda, restrictions not at all present at tournaments, and restrictions that excludes 95% of the game, from this same discussion of what's doing well at tournaments?

Wait, you didn't see that the winning list won based off opponent resistance, and the Guard primary army also went undefeated?

Wait, you are claiming that I said Knights are fine based off absolutely nothing, even though I've spoken out about them in the past in topics relevant to them, just like I'm doing here in topics relevant to IG?




Stop posting for a couple of days, and spend the time thinking about what is motivating you to post like this. You are the walking definition of "moving the goalposts", and even when it comes to those moving nets you aren't being even remotely objective, you came in here downplaying Guard before you even knew what the lists were.

Way to miss represent what I'm saying (i notice this as a trend in your posts instead of actively answering any questions that differ from your view)

What you seem to be ignoring is that
1. No list your pointing at is mono guard (showing that guard need something added from another army to compete at the top tables)
2. More of the top lists had "Knights" in common then "IG" in common
If you are going to point to a tournaments outcome as a reason to nerf x because of how much it appeared then you cannot ignore the inclusion of y which appeared more frequently (and won the entire event)

You are asking to nerf a single unit x to address an issue with soup in general. Not only will this not change the prevalence of soup it will just decrease the appearence of x to the portion of y. You can keep increasing the cost of x over and over until you not see slightly less optimized soup including second cheap z unit. You will have then severely hurt mono army player that has access to unit x and only slightly reduced the effectiveness of the soup army that can pick the next best unit from a-z. What they should focus on is addressing issues that each faction has so they are not reliant on soup as some factions will never have this option and thus can never be balanced on a level playing field

Edit:
I also aparently knew exactly what the lists were by listening to podcasts just wanted to be safe and not present it as fact as i did not have them infront of me..... but it iss 100% what i listened to and now you confirmed it.

If 5 ppm Guardsmen removed mono guard from tournaments, then they'd be in line with most other mono armies, so what's the problem?

Why should IG be one of the only armies that are competitve as a mono army?

Trollbert wrote:
If 5 ppm Guardsmen removed mono guard from tournaments, then they'd be in line with most other mono armies, so what's the problem?

Why should IG be one of the only armies that are competitve as a mono army?

I would like to see all mono armies competitive but my guess is they are not the top mono army (while unarguably one of the better mono armies).... My reasoning
While a low frequency you do see
DE, E, Tau, Nids, Necrons (although only vault lists) Orks occasionally finish top 3 or at least in top 10 spots. I have yet to see a single 100% mono guard list (since the rule of 3 and removal of the 16 hellhound list) place in the top 10 of a tournament. This is obviously not a great metric as so few players are taking mono guard as you can make them hyper-competitive by adding in soup option (x) while factions like tau cannot soup so obviously all included are "pure" armies. But addressing a single unit from IG is failing to do anything significant to address that imperium chaos and eldar can pick from a multitude of books while tau and Necrons cant. Id like to see a game where each codex could stand on its own instead of being forced to take multiple books. Nuking single units to hurt soup also disproportionally hurts players that do not soup.

Hmm, i could receive some flak from this, but after thinking about it for a while, i'm not sure that IS should be 5 points. Mind, i'm not saying that they are fine, but just that we shouldn't rush this.

AM lists right now are extremely strong because the soup system is allowing them to cover the greatest flaw of the faction, which is not CC, is command points. IG can generate unlimited amount of command points, but don't really now what to do with those. That's also the reason why they have stuff like Grand Stragetist and Kurov's Aquila, because CP have little value for them, so a trait or a relic that gives CP must be really good to be considered.

Souping is allowing them to take all those unspent resources and funnelling them into high yeld units like bananas, smashers and knights.

After a nerf to CP sharing mechanics that i'm fairly sure that will come in the next round of FAQs, i would like to reassess the true strenght of IS before claiming that something is OP.

After all, it's not like a 5+ save for 4 points is something that only IS have, it that were truly OP then leviathan termagants would be as well (6+/6+++ is roughly equivalent). Sure they don't have the same lasgun firepower, but they have squads up to 40, immunity to morale and anything charging into them is covered in acid blood mortal wounds, not to mention that they can wound T7 on 4+ with a stratagem and can hide devourers. Oh and they pretty much always have a -1 to shooting.
Yet, termagants are not seen around as much as IG, so i'm not sure that IS is what makes the militarum such a top competitive choice.

I would wait for the inevitable nerf to CP sharing and for a buff to marine factions before passing judgement on IS.

Spoletta wrote:
Hmm, i could receive some flak from this, but after thinking about it for a while, i'm not sure that IS should be 5 points. Mind, i'm not saying that they are fine, but just that we shouldn't rush this.

AM lists right now are extremely strong because the soup system is allowing them to cover the greatest flaw of the faction, which is not CC, is command points. IG can generate unlimited amount of command points, but don't really now what to do with those. That's also the reason why they have stuff like Grand Stragetist and Kurov's Aquila, because CP have little value for them, so a trait or a relic that gives CP must be really good to be considered.

Souping is allowing them to take all those unspent resources and funnelling them into high yeld units like bananas, smashers and knights.

After a nerf to CP sharing mechanics that i'm fairly sure that will come in the next round of FAQs, i would like to reassess the true strenght of IS before claiming that something is OP.

After all, it's not like a 5+ save for 4 points is something that only IS have, it that were truly OP then leviathan termagants would be as well (6+/6+++ is roughly equivalent). Sure they don't have the same lasgun firepower, but they have squads up to 40, immunity to morale and anything charging into them is covered in acid blood mortal wounds, not to mention that they can wound T7 on 4+ with a stratagem and can hide devourers. Oh and they pretty much always have a -1 to shooting.
Yet, termagants are not seen around as much as IG, so i'm not sure that IS is what makes the militarum such a top competitive choice.

I would wait for the inevitable nerf to CP sharing and for a buff to marine factions before passing judgement on IS.

^
Thank you this is all that im saying. Guard could very well need a nerf in the future but right now its their ability to funnel their CP into another books strategems that seems to be the real strength of the faction

Except that's nothing like what you said.

And stop playing the more knights in the top 10 than guard as technicaly your wrong in that regard as Renegade Knights and Imperial Knights are separate codex's.

Knights are strong but loose the soup and Knights stuggle to score so fall into table or win.

Astra Millicheese have cheap tanks, cheap infantry.
You say guard don't have CC options bullgryns would disagree especially backed up with the appropriate charictors.

Infantry squads shoukd be 5ppm as if they stay at 4ppm next we get calls for 3ppm conscripts again and they are OP at 3ppm

Ice_can wrote:
Except that's nothing like what you said.

And stop playing the more knights in the top 10 than guard as technicaly your wrong in that regard as Renegade Knights and Imperial Knights are separate codex's.

Knights are strong but loose the soup and Knights stuggle to score so fall into table or win.

Astra Millicheese have cheap tanks, cheap infantry.
You say guard don't have CC options bullgryns would disagree especially backed up with the appropriate charictors.

Infantry squads shoukd be 5ppm as if they stay at 4ppm next we get calls for 3ppm conscripts again and they are OP at 3ppm

4 out of 5 of the top armies included knights, as well as, the winning list that included a knight but no IG. Why is the prevalence of the knight not considered but the prevalence of the guard is?
Guard have cheap tanks...... I don't see guard tank spam winning tournaments
Guard have cheap infantry...... I don't see infantry spam guard winning tournaments
Once again the common thread between each list is guard + x are winning tournaments. What this shows me is that taking guard and plugging up weakness x while allowing them to funnel cheap CP into another army is a problem. Why hurt mono guard lists which are not winning while we could just address the actual lists that are winning?

Also its quiet funny when i state this over and over but am told that's not what I'm saying

 Xenomancers wrote:

Ork has a better gun to offset the bs5+. They do about the same damage when they shoot targets. The ork also has T4 to ofset the 6+ save - the main difference it has to pay for is more attacks. Honestly +1 attack is worth more than a 1 point difference. They also come in 30 man squads - which allows the unit to make most out of buffs.

IG also have options to increase the usefulness of their basic infantries shooting abilities, they are also faster, can take heavy/special weapons worth using, ohh and they can easily take cover to increase their armor save, something orkz can't really do.

So what you are saying is that Orkz pay 2 more pts then guardsmen because it has 1 more attack then they do, and can come in bigger squads....which actually doesn't help them with buffs, because the only buff I can think of that isn't AoE is "Warpath". yeah I am not buying it, keep in mind I am not saying nerf guardsmen or buff Boyz, because there are a lot of other aspects of the game and armies that effect those units, I am just pointing out that in a vacuum Ork Boyz are WORSE then Guardsmen by a significant margin.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asmodios wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Except that's nothing like what you said.

And stop playing the more knights in the top 10 than guard as technicaly your wrong in that regard as Renegade Knights and Imperial Knights are separate codex's.

Knights are strong but loose the soup and Knights stuggle to score so fall into table or win.

Astra Millicheese have cheap tanks, cheap infantry.
You say guard don't have CC options bullgryns would disagree especially backed up with the appropriate charictors.

Infantry squads shoukd be 5ppm as if they stay at 4ppm next we get calls for 3ppm conscripts again and they are OP at 3ppm

4 out of 5 of the top armies included knights, as well as, the winning list that included a knight but no IG. Why is the prevalence of the knight not considered but the prevalence of the guard is?
Guard have cheap tanks...... I don't see guard tank spam winning tournaments
Guard have cheap infantry...... I don't see infantry spam guard winning tournaments
Once again the common thread between each list is guard + x are winning tournaments. What this shows me is that taking guard and plugging up weakness x while allowing them to funnel cheap CP into another army is a problem. Why hurt mono guard lists which are not winning while we could just address the actual lists that are winning?

Also its quiet funny when i state this over and over but am told that's not what I'm saying

Probably because everyone already knows and admits that Knights are OP and the "New Cheese" just like conscripts were at the start of 8th.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Ork has a better gun to offset the bs5+. They do about the same damage when they shoot targets. The ork also has T4 to ofset the 6+ save - the main difference it has to pay for is more attacks. Honestly +1 attack is worth more than a 1 point difference. They also come in 30 man squads - which allows the unit to make most out of buffs.

IG also have options to increase the usefulness of their basic infantries shooting abilities, they are also faster, can take heavy/special weapons worth using, ohh and they can easily take cover to increase their armor save, something orkz can't really do.

So what you are saying is that Orkz pay 2 more pts then guardsmen because it has 1 more attack then they do, and can come in bigger squads....which actually doesn't help them with buffs, because the only buff I can think of that isn't AoE is "Warpath". yeah I am not buying it, keep in mind I am not saying nerf guardsmen or buff Boyz, because there are a lot of other aspects of the game and armies that effect those units, I am just pointing out that in a vacuum Ork Boyz are WORSE then Guardsmen by a significant margin.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asmodios wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Except that's nothing like what you said.

And stop playing the more knights in the top 10 than guard as technicaly your wrong in that regard as Renegade Knights and Imperial Knights are separate codex's.

Knights are strong but loose the soup and Knights stuggle to score so fall into table or win.

Astra Millicheese have cheap tanks, cheap infantry.
You say guard don't have CC options bullgryns would disagree especially backed up with the appropriate charictors.

Infantry squads shoukd be 5ppm as if they stay at 4ppm next we get calls for 3ppm conscripts again and they are OP at 3ppm

4 out of 5 of the top armies included knights, as well as, the winning list that included a knight but no IG. Why is the prevalence of the knight not considered but the prevalence of the guard is?
Guard have cheap tanks...... I don't see guard tank spam winning tournaments
Guard have cheap infantry...... I don't see infantry spam guard winning tournaments
Once again the common thread between each list is guard + x are winning tournaments. What this shows me is that taking guard and plugging up weakness x while allowing them to funnel cheap CP into another army is a problem. Why hurt mono guard lists which are not winning while we could just address the actual lists that are winning?

Also its quiet funny when i state this over and over but am told that's not what I'm saying

Probably because everyone already knows and admits that Knights are OP and the "New Cheese" just like conscripts were at the start of 8th.

But are knights broken? I really don't think so.... are knights + x broken most likely yes. I know plenty of mono knight players and while the codex is good it suffers from low CP and the fact its a skew list (yes I know this is a double-edged sword). Once again why nuke knights so we only see them on shelves. I love the fact that they are good and being taken as they are beautiful centerpiece models. The issue on Dakka is the revolving door of x is broken just to see it nerfed and soup move on to the next busted combo. We should be focusing on addressing soup so that we can actually start to work on underpowered and overpowered books

Don't get me wrong some people enjoy soup and I don't want to see it out of the game I would like to see soup and non-soup armies be equally viable as this helps narrow the gap between mono faction players and soup players as well as make the game easier to balance IMO.

Knights were broken the moment a 2+ and 4++ option was present.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Knights were broken the moment a 2+ and 4++ option was present.

But to the same point I've made about IG.... Then why are we not seeing pure knights lists dominate things like the BAO.... Why is it always Knights + unit x? If Knights need another faction to win these tournaments then are they truly broken as its easy to take a list that just includes more knights?

Asmodios wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Knights were broken the moment a 2+ and 4++ option was present.

But to the same point I've made about IG.... Then why are we not seeing pure knights lists dominate things like the BAO.... Why is it always Knights + unit x? If Knights need another faction to win these tournaments then are they truly broken as its easy to take a list that just includes more knights?

Pure Knights CAN work, but forking up 180 points for 5CP and objective capturing makes them that much better.

Guard are the problem again in this scenario.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Knights were broken the moment a 2+ and 4++ option was present.

But to the same point I've made about IG.... Then why are we not seeing pure knights lists dominate things like the BAO.... Why is it always Knights + unit x? If Knights need another faction to win these tournaments then are they truly broken as its easy to take a list that just includes more knights?

Pure Knights CAN work, but forking up 180 points for 5CP and objective capturing makes them that much better.

Guard are the problem again in this scenario.

No, the problem again.... like always is soup. Soup is taking the strength of army x and adding army y to completely negate its weakness. Remove soup always being a clear and obvious advantage and you will see this change

Asmodios wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Knights were broken the moment a 2+ and 4++ option was present.

But to the same point I've made about IG.... Then why are we not seeing pure knights lists dominate things like the BAO.... Why is it always Knights + unit x? If Knights need another faction to win these tournaments then are they truly broken as its easy to take a list that just includes more knights?

Pure Knights CAN work, but forking up 180 points for 5CP and objective capturing makes them that much better.

Guard are the problem again in this scenario.

No, the problem again.... like always is soup. Soup is taking the strength of army x and adding army y to completely negate its weakness. Remove soup always being a clear and obvious advantage and you will see this change

Someone already pointed out that pure Guard were already doing the best of the pure factions in tournaments. So NO there isn't a change.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Knights were broken the moment a 2+ and 4++ option was present.

But to the same point I've made about IG.... Then why are we not seeing pure knights lists dominate things like the BAO.... Why is it always Knights + unit x? If Knights need another faction to win these tournaments then are they truly broken as its easy to take a list that just includes more knights?

Pure Knights CAN work, but forking up 180 points for 5CP and objective capturing makes them that much better.

Guard are the problem again in this scenario.

No, the problem again.... like always is soup. Soup is taking the strength of army x and adding army y to completely negate its weakness. Remove soup always being a clear and obvious advantage and you will see this change

Someone already pointed out that pure Guard were already doing the best of the pure factions in tournaments. So NO there isn't a change.

I have not seen a single statistic showing pure guard doing the best. People have shown "primary" guard but I have seen no evidence or posts showing pure guard as commonly placing well. Please link the data so i can read it

Nobody will post it because it doesn't exist haha.

 Colonel Cross wrote:
Nobody will post it because it doesn't exist haha.

That what I expected and its what we see day after day thread after thread on dakka.... army x gets blamed for the sins of soup. The best way to increase the power of xeno armies that cannot soup is to reduce the benefits of factions that can soup. once soup has been removed as the always obvious answer to anything it will be much easier to identify actual problem units and codexes and change them accordingly

We. Literally. Did. The. Math.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asmodios wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Knights were broken the moment a 2+ and 4++ option was present.

But to the same point I've made about IG.... Then why are we not seeing pure knights lists dominate things like the BAO.... Why is it always Knights + unit x? If Knights need another faction to win these tournaments then are they truly broken as its easy to take a list that just includes more knights?

Pure Knights CAN work, but forking up 180 points for 5CP and objective capturing makes them that much better.

Guard are the problem again in this scenario.

No, the problem again.... like always is soup. Soup is taking the strength of army x and adding army y to completely negate its weakness. Remove soup always being a clear and obvious advantage and you will see this change

Someone already pointed out that pure Guard were already doing the best of the pure factions in tournaments. So NO there isn't a change.

I have not seen a single statistic showing pure guard doing the best. People have shown "primary" guard but I have seen no evidence or posts showing pure guard as commonly placing well. Please link the data so i can read it

Someone already told you about the BAO earlier. Not sure what more you want.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
We. Literally. Did. The. Math.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asmodios wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Knights were broken the moment a 2+ and 4++ option was present.

But to the same point I've made about IG.... Then why are we not seeing pure knights lists dominate things like the BAO.... Why is it always Knights + unit x? If Knights need another faction to win these tournaments then are they truly broken as its easy to take a list that just includes more knights?

Pure Knights CAN work, but forking up 180 points for 5CP and objective capturing makes them that much better.

Guard are the problem again in this scenario.

No, the problem again.... like always is soup. Soup is taking the strength of army x and adding army y to completely negate its weakness. Remove soup always being a clear and obvious advantage and you will see this change

Someone already pointed out that pure Guard were already doing the best of the pure factions in tournaments. So NO there isn't a change.

I have not seen a single statistic showing pure guard doing the best. People have shown "primary" guard but I have seen no evidence or posts showing pure guard as commonly placing well. Please link the data so i can read it

Someone already told you about the BAO earlier. Not sure what more you want.

There wasn't a single pure guard army that placed...... go back and read

So I guess Custodes Shield-Captains on bikes are fine because we never see pure Custodes winning anything.

See the problem with your logic is that in these settings people will take the best of the best and that means allies. Guard Infantry is seen in most Imperium armies because they are really good at what they do (cheap, take up space and are resilient for their points). Why aren't people taking Admech CP batteries? I can get a battalion for 201 pts, vs the Guard battalion of 200 pts. So what gives?

Pure Guard armies have some less than stellar units that can hold them back. Anyone allying Sentinels? Infantry on the other hand is superior to every other comparable option, which is why they need a price bump. There's also the fact that Conscripts have lost their place and that's mostly because they cost the same as Infantry. Ideally imo we would have 4 pt conscripts, 5 pt infantry and 6 pt veterans.

If you really want to see Vets again, you'd make them Troops once more. That was one of the sole reasons they sorta worked last edition.

Dandelion wrote:
So I guess Custodes Shield-Captains on bikes are fine because we never see pure Custodes winning anything.

See the problem with your logic is that in these settings people will take the best of the best and that means allies. Guard Infantry is seen in most Imperium armies because they are really good at what they do (cheap, take up space and are resilient for their points). Why aren't people taking Admech CP batteries? I can get a battalion for 201 pts, vs the Guard battalion of 200 pts. So what gives?

Pure Guard armies have some less than stellar units that can hold them back. Anyone allying Sentinels? Infantry on the other hand is superior to every other comparable option, which is why they need a price bump. There's also the fact that Conscripts have lost their place and that's mostly because they cost the same as Infantry. Ideally imo we would have 4 pt conscripts, 5 pt infantry and 6 pt veterans.

Yes, I think shield captains are fine and only become an issue when..... you guessed it soup.
My logic on this isn't only consistent it seems to be backed by results. After the rule of 3 was implemented every troubling build comes out of soup while none of these units on their own can purely bust the single codex they belong to. This isn't surprising at all because its obvious that codex 1 + half the codexes in the game is going to be better then codex 1 in its pure form. It also logically follows that any nerf to hurt a specific soup build is going to affect players that do not soup more than those breaking the system. People are taking guard because they can generate a nearly endless stream of CP for armies that should have never had easy access to an endless stream while giving things like knights cheap bodies to sit on objectives.

The simple solution IMO is to only make it where CP can only be used detachments with the same main key work as those that generated them. So catachan generated CP can only be used on catachan. This makes sense balance wise and thematically as a larger force of x type army allows for more tactical use of x armies strategies. I also believe that the automatic +3 CP should only be for mono armies.

Being an ork player, I recognize that guard infantry have very similar statistical outcome with some edge cases. Similar defense (44% IG vs 42% Ork chance to be kill against bolters, with orks being better vs 6/7 str and ig better at str 8 and higher), similar ranged output (16.6r% to wound vs t4 for lasguns and shootas, with the shoota having more shots 13"-18", lasgun at 19"-24".

But Orks have +1S and A, native charge reroll, the ability to get more attacks, and one of the best morale boosting rules in the game.

I simply don't believe that's all worth one point.

I think all credibility was lost the moment that guy said that Custodes Biker Captains are fine without soup.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
If you really want to see Vets again, you'd make them Troops once more. That was one of the sole reasons they sorta worked last edition.

It's the sticking factor whenever I try and work them into a list, can't fill a battalion with them without also dragging along a bunch of normal guardsmen and at that point why even bother? you're basically duping units. I really think that scion's and vet's should switch places, would make way more sense, Vet's being the BS3+ troop choice with scion's being the elite unit. Not only fluffy it would reign scions in slightly and make vet's more appealing.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I think all credibility was lost the moment that guy said that Custodes Biker Captains are fine without soup.

Have you ever played against a pure custodian army? Nothing I saw was game breaking or overpowered. While bikes are clearly the best unit the lack of CP and cheap bodies hinders the army as a whole giving them a clear and glaring weakness

Once again I don't see pure custodes armies destroying the meta

I'm biased since I play guard. But I also want to play a balanced game with my friends. I run a minimum of 60 guardsmen in my standard TAC list and I gotta tell ya, it's gonna hurt if they go up to 5ppm and by the end of my games I usually have only a handful of guys left. But I suppose I could also run more competitive lists to offset the point change.

It's instances like this where I wish the points scale was increased a bit so there was better definition between units. Like a guardsman was 10 points, termagants were 7, etc. I wouldn't have a problem then. But when a single point increase changes a models value by 25% that is quite a change, no?

I'm just trying to compromise yet I know that's not feasible but I do feel like that would help with a lot of things. But hey, 8th edition must be great if our qualms are on guardsmen and single point changes so that's pretty awesome.

Asmodios wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
So I guess Custodes Shield-Captains on bikes are fine because we never see pure Custodes winning anything.

See the problem with your logic is that in these settings people will take the best of the best and that means allies. Guard Infantry is seen in most Imperium armies because they are really good at what they do (cheap, take up space and are resilient for their points). Why aren't people taking Admech CP batteries? I can get a battalion for 201 pts, vs the Guard battalion of 200 pts. So what gives?

Pure Guard armies have some less than stellar units that can hold them back. Anyone allying Sentinels? Infantry on the other hand is superior to every other comparable option, which is why they need a price bump. There's also the fact that Conscripts have lost their place and that's mostly because they cost the same as Infantry. Ideally imo we would have 4 pt conscripts, 5 pt infantry and 6 pt veterans.

Yes, I think shield captains are fine and only become an issue when..... you guessed it soup.
My logic on this isn't only consistent it seems to be backed by results. After the rule of 3 was implemented every troubling build comes out of soup while none of these units on their own can purely bust the single codex they belong to. This isn't surprising at all because its obvious that codex 1 + half the codexes in the game is going to be better then codex 1 in its pure form. It also logically follows that any nerf to hurt a specific soup build is going to affect players that do not soup more than those breaking the system. People are taking guard because they can generate a nearly endless stream of CP for armies that should have never had easy access to an endless stream while giving things like knights cheap bodies to sit on objectives.

The simple solution IMO is to only make it where CP can only be used detachments with the same main key work as those that generated them. So catachan generated CP can only be used on catachan. This makes sense balance wise and thematically as a larger force of x type army allows for more tactical use of x armies strategies. I also believe that the automatic +3 CP should only be for mono armies.

Why are you assuming that 5pt guard is only to fix soup lists? It's not, it is also aimed at pure guard. And honestly, 5 pt guard won't stop CP farms (+30 pts for most armies) so that can't be the issue. The issue is their actual tabletop performance. IS are also safe from the rule of three so. I'd also be willing to bet that once -1 to hit army traits get binned Guard will see a rise in winnings.
Another point, why do you assume the devs designed each faction to stand on their own? Custodes were blatantly designed with the idea of Imperial allies in mind. Knights are also encouraged to run guard under the guise of house militia.

Dandelion wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
So I guess Custodes Shield-Captains on bikes are fine because we never see pure Custodes winning anything.

See the problem with your logic is that in these settings people will take the best of the best and that means allies. Guard Infantry is seen in most Imperium armies because they are really good at what they do (cheap, take up space and are resilient for their points). Why aren't people taking Admech CP batteries? I can get a battalion for 201 pts, vs the Guard battalion of 200 pts. So what gives?

Pure Guard armies have some less than stellar units that can hold them back. Anyone allying Sentinels? Infantry on the other hand is superior to every other comparable option, which is why they need a price bump. There's also the fact that Conscripts have lost their place and that's mostly because they cost the same as Infantry. Ideally imo we would have 4 pt conscripts, 5 pt infantry and 6 pt veterans.

Yes, I think shield captains are fine and only become an issue when..... you guessed it soup.
My logic on this isn't only consistent it seems to be backed by results. After the rule of 3 was implemented every troubling build comes out of soup while none of these units on their own can purely bust the single codex they belong to. This isn't surprising at all because its obvious that codex 1 + half the codexes in the game is going to be better then codex 1 in its pure form. It also logically follows that any nerf to hurt a specific soup build is going to affect players that do not soup more than those breaking the system. People are taking guard because they can generate a nearly endless stream of CP for armies that should have never had easy access to an endless stream while giving things like knights cheap bodies to sit on objectives.

The simple solution IMO is to only make it where CP can only be used detachments with the same main key work as those that generated them. So catachan generated CP can only be used on catachan. This makes sense balance wise and thematically as a larger force of x type army allows for more tactical use of x armies strategies. I also believe that the automatic +3 CP should only be for mono armies.

Why are you assuming that 5pt guard is only to fix soup lists? It's not, it is also aimed at pure guard. And honestly, 5 pt guard won't stop CP farms (+30 pts for most armies) so that can't be the issue. The issue is their actual tabletop performance. IS are also safe from the rule of three so. I'd also be willing to bet that once -1 to hit army traits get binned Guard will see a rise in winnings.
Another point, why do you assume the devs designed each faction to stand on their own? Custodes were blatantly designed with the idea of Imperial allies in mind. Knights are also encouraged to run guard under the guise of house militia.

So its also to fix pure guard..... mind pointing me in the direction of the pure guard armies running around the tournament scene killing everything? Most competitive pure guard lists I've seen are three shadowswod lists and clearly, aren't focused around the idea of broken guardsmen. I also think that "x codex is not made to be solo" argument is disingenuous and unfair to players that want to play solo faction armies. There should be strengths and weaknesses to every army and there should be a benefit and a cost to taking soup. Right now, unfortunately, soup has pushed peoples ability to play many forces as solo to zero and has also covered up codexes flaws that will never get adjusted because the easier fix is to say "take you x and just add it in"

Edit:
Also if -1 hit got nerfed that would increase the power level of guard significantly... But lets cross that bridge if and when it comes. No point if talking nerfs that might or might not happen as possible changes for an army now. If -1 to hit leaves the game completely you will see me being the first person to say that this helps guard a lot and that guard will need adjusting

 Colonel Cross wrote:
I'm biased since I play guard. But I also want to play a balanced game with my friends. I run a minimum of 60 guardsmen in my standard TAC list and I gotta tell ya, it's gonna hurt if they go up to 5ppm and by the end of my games I usually have only a handful of guys left. But I suppose I could also run more competitive lists to offset the point change.

It's instances like this where I wish the points scale was increased a bit so there was better definition between units. Like a guardsman was 10 points, termagants were 7, etc. I wouldn't have a problem then. But when a single point increase changes a models value by 25% that is quite a change, no?

I'm just trying to compromise yet I know that's not feasible but I do feel like that would help with a lot of things. But hey, 8th edition must be great if our qualms are on guardsmen and single point changes so that's pretty awesome.

60 Guardsmen is not actually a lot for 2000pts. We're only talking 240 pts, that's as much as a single tank (maybe a bit more). If I were so inclined I could easily stuff 200 Guard on the field and still have 1200 pts left over for Russes, artillery and a baneblade. Run the infantry as Steel Legion and rapid fire straight through everything. With max commanders you can even give 90-100 Guardsmen FRFSRF each turn.
That said, Guard have other stuff that could easily be readjusted to keep pure guard good. Sentinels and Chimeras come to mind.
Worst case scenario 5pt guard is too much and we can just revert back.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asmodios wrote:

So its also to fix pure guard..... mind pointing me in the direction of the pure guard armies running around the tournament scene killing everything? Most competitive pure guard lists I've seen are three shadowswod lists and clearly, aren't focused around the idea of broken guardsmen. I also think that "x codex is not made to be solo" argument is disingenuous and unfair to players that want to play solo faction armies. There should be strengths and weaknesses to every army and there should be a benefit and a cost to taking soup. Right now, unfortunately, soup has pushed peoples ability to play many forces as solo to zero and has also covered up codexes flaws that will never get adjusted because the easier fix is to say "take you x and just add it in"

Edit:
Also if -1 hit got nerfed that would increase the power level of guard significantly... But lets cross that bridge if and when it comes. No point if talking nerfs that might or might not happen as possible changes for an army now. If -1 to hit leaves the game completely you will see me being the first person to say that this helps guard a lot and that guard will need adjusting

Custodes have an ability that buffs "IMPERIUM" units. If that doesn't mean they are designed to ally then I don't know what does.
I'm also going to disagree with the "every army needs strengths and weaknesses". A list can have strengths and weaknesses, but factions should not. Why? Because that's how you get skew lists. It also heavily encourages soup in the first place. If all factions could field an answer to any scenario, allies just become a cool thing to do for fluff reasons.

Dandelion wrote:

 Colonel Cross wrote:
I'm biased since I play guard. But I also want to play a balanced game with my friends. I run a minimum of 60 guardsmen in my standard TAC list and I gotta tell ya, it's gonna hurt if they go up to 5ppm and by the end of my games I usually have only a handful of guys left. But I suppose I could also run more competitive lists to offset the point change.

It's instances like this where I wish the points scale was increased a bit so there was better definition between units. Like a guardsman was 10 points, termagants were 7, etc. I wouldn't have a problem then. But when a single point increase changes a models value by 25% that is quite a change, no?

I'm just trying to compromise yet I know that's not feasible but I do feel like that would help with a lot of things. But hey, 8th edition must be great if our qualms are on guardsmen and single point changes so that's pretty awesome.

60 Guardsmen is not actually a lot for 2000pts. We're only talking 240 pts, that's as much as a single tank (maybe a bit more). If I were so inclined I could easily stuff 200 Guard on the field and still have 1200 pts left over for Russes, artillery and a baneblade. Run the infantry as Steel Legion and rapid fire straight through everything. With max commanders you can even give 90-100 Guardsmen FRFSRF each turn.
That said, Guard have other stuff that could easily be readjusted to keep pure guard good. Sentinels and Chimeras come to mind.
Worst case scenario 5pt guard is too much and we can just revert back.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asmodios wrote:

So its also to fix pure guard..... mind pointing me in the direction of the pure guard armies running around the tournament scene killing everything? Most competitive pure guard lists I've seen are three shadowswod lists and clearly, aren't focused around the idea of broken guardsmen. I also think that "x codex is not made to be solo" argument is disingenuous and unfair to players that want to play solo faction armies. There should be strengths and weaknesses to every army and there should be a benefit and a cost to taking soup. Right now, unfortunately, soup has pushed peoples ability to play many forces as solo to zero and has also covered up codexes flaws that will never get adjusted because the easier fix is to say "take you x and just add it in"

Edit:
Also if -1 hit got nerfed that would increase the power level of guard significantly... But lets cross that bridge if and when it comes. No point if talking nerfs that might or might not happen as possible changes for an army now. If -1 to hit leaves the game completely you will see me being the first person to say that this helps guard a lot and that guard will need adjusting

Custodes have an ability that buffs "IMPERIUM" units. If that doesn't mean they are designed to ally then I don't know what does.
I'm also going to disagree with the "every army needs strengths and weaknesses". A list can have strengths and weaknesses, but factions should not. Why? Because that's how you get skew lists. It also heavily encourages soup in the first place. If all factions could field an answer to any scenario, allies just become a cool thing to do for fluff reasons.

I have to disagree. Having defined strengths and weaknesses allows for 2 things
1. Thematic differences in armies that match fluff
2. Counters to exist to allow for a level of balance
I like to use card games for examples like this and Hearthstone is my favorite. You can typically build early mid and late game decks with each hero giving you a strength and weakness to each one. Having weaknesses allows for counter decks to be made if any one deck becomes to prominent in the meta. Take the scourge that was a pirate warrior a rush deck that had 2 cards that were too cheap and thus dominated the meta..... That was until people like me ran obvious counter decks. I ran a board clear warrior and farmed up to legends in an afternoon. My win rate was low against everything else but the large amount of PW allowed me to have an overall amazing win percentage. The same thing happened when quest rogue first dropped, I made a basic zoo lock and got legends in a day. Having a defined weakness allows for the community to self-nerf something by running a hard counter. If you create factions with no weakness not only do they have no flavor whatsoever its also impossible to build a clear counter.

Asmodios wrote:

I have to disagree. Having defined strengths and weaknesses allows for 2 things
1. Thematic differences in armies that match fluff
2. Counters to exist to allow for a level of balance
I like to use card games for examples like this and Hearthstone is my favorite. You can typically build early mid and late game decks with each hero giving you a strength and weakness to each one. Having weaknesses allows for counter decks to be made if any one deck becomes to prominent in the meta. Take the scourge that was a pirate warrior a rush deck that had 2 cards that were too cheap and thus dominated the meta..... That was until people like me ran obvious counter decks. I ran a board clear warrior and farmed up to legends in an afternoon. My win rate was low against everything else but the large amount of PW allowed me to have an overall amazing win percentage. The same thing happened when quest rogue first dropped, I made a basic zoo lock and got legends in a day. Having a defined weakness allows for the community to self-nerf something by running a hard counter. If you create factions with no weakness not only do they have no flavor whatsoever its also impossible to build a clear counter.

I'm personally wholly uninterested in playing that kind of card game. In fact, anything that makes 40k closer to a card game is a no from me. Why should I bother when I can get the same tactical depth with cards?
Besides, what weaknesses to the factions actually have? AFAIK every faction has at least one unit for shooting/melee/anti-infantry/anti-tank.

Also thematic differences don't require the faction as a whole to have weaknesses. Marines have tough infantry that serve a multitude of roles. That's just how they are structured, it's not a weakness of itself. Guard use versatile infantry backed with heavy weapons and numerous vehicles. Again that's a structure not a strength or weakness. Tau have suits designed to fulfill multiple roles and backed by solid light infantry and grav tanks, even kroot cover their melee "weakness".

Guardsman deserve to be 5ppm. Quoting two of my different responses; the first is Guardsman vs Firewarriors (T3), the second is Guardsman/Firewarriors vs MEQ/5EQ (T4/T5).

This is untrue. Guardsman > Firewarriors, and all other troopers, pound for pound.

Guardsman - 4ppm
Range 24" Rapid Fire 1, S3, AP-0

Firewarrior - 7ppm
Range 30", Rapid Fire 1, S5, AP-0

17 Guardsman+1 Boltgun (Sergeant) = 68+1pts
10 Firewarriors = 70 points

17 Guardsman shooting at Firewarriors, Range24"
16 Lasgun shots; 16*.5*.5*.5 = 2 unsaved wounds
1 Boltgun shot; 1*.5*.666*.5 = 0.1665 unsaved wounds
TOTAL: 2.1665

10 Firewarriors shooting at Guardsman, Range30"
10 Pulse Rifle shots; 10*.5*.666*.666 = 2.21778 unsaved wounds
TOTAL: 2.21778

Unbuffed; Tau win outside of Rapid Fire range - but, the Guardsman have 17 wounds versus the Firewarriors 10; which is a massive deal in terms of durability, 58.8% more durable. The moment the shooting goes past one rounds worth, Guardsman>Firewarriors.

Let's talk buffs:
20 Guardsman(2 Boltguns)+1 Company Commander = 112pts
10 Firewarriors+1 Cadre Fireblade = 112pts

20 Guardsman(2 Boltguns)+1 Company Commander (issuing FRSRF x2) shooting at Firewarriors, Range12"
18*4 Lasgun shots: 72*.5*.5*.5 = 9 unsaved wounds
2 Boltgun shots: 2*.5*.5*.5 = .25 unsaved wouds
TOTAL: 9.25

10 Firewarriors+1 Cadre Fireblade, shooting at Guardsman, Range15"
1 Markerlight shot: 1*.8333 = ~1 hit
10*3 Pulse Rifle shots: 10*.5*.666*.666 = 6.65334 unsaved wounds
Rerolling the 1's adds... 5*(.333)*.5*.666*.666 = .277xxx unsaved wounds
TOTAL: 6.93034

Buffed: It's not even close. Guardsman >>> Firewarriors, while having 21 wounds VS 11 wounds. - Speaking of the value of traits, Guardsman can get the same range as Firewarriors, unless the Firewarriors also take the +range trait. Firewarriors can get +1cover save, which brings down 18*4 Lasgun shots expected output to... 5.994, a significant reduction - but still not enough to win them a prolonged shootout; and they lose it if they move. If Guardsman don't have to move either, they could also take the re-roll 1's trait, which adds... 1.4985 unsaved wounds, for 18*4 Lasgun shots.

Guardsman do not deserve to be 4ppm under any circumstances; at least not with their statline, relative to the stats/prices of other factions armies. Adding in a 30PPM Company Commander brings a Guardsman squad up to 5.5PPM/7PPM (2/1 squads buffed by CompanyCommander); which sounds reasonable, but STILL blows out other factions troopers. 4pts = 1W, Sv5+, and 1/2/4 Lasgun shots.

Guardsman win the infantry war point for point, and back that up with an excessive number of Artillery/Tank units (up to 3x as many models as other factions, thanks to squadrons), all of which are competitive in their own right.

Let's talk buffs:
20 Guardsman(2 Boltguns)+1 Company Commander = 112pts
10 Firewarriors+1 Cadre Fireblade = 112pts
VS
MEQ; T4, Sv3+
5EQ (Custodes); T5, Sv2+

20 Guardsman(2 Boltguns)+1 Company Commander (issuing FRSRF x2) shooting at MEQ, Range12"
[I'm leaving the 2 Boltguns and 1 Laspistol out of the equations below; it's a lot more lines/calculations for what ultimately amounts to... a smaller bonus than what it's worth for this comparison.]
VS MEQ
R24": (18)*.5*.333*.333 = .998001
Cadia RR1's: (9)*(.333)*.5*.333*.333 = .1661671665
TOTAL: 1.1641681665
R12": (18*4)*.5*.333*.333 = 3.992004
Cadia RR1's: (36)*(.333)*.5*.333*.333 = .664668666
TOTAL: 4.656672666
VS 5EQ
R24": (18)*.5*.333*.166 = .497502
Cadia RR1's: (9)*(.333)*.5*.333*.166 = .082834083
TOTAL: .580336083
R12": (18*4)*.5*.333*.166 = 1.990008
Cadia RR1's: (36)*(.333)*.5*.333*.166 = .331336332
TOTAL: 2.321344332

10 Firewarriors+1 Cadre Fireblade, shooting at MEQ, Range15"
VS MEQ
R24": (10)*.5*.666*.333 = 1.10889
Markerlight RR1's: (5).(.333)*.5*.666*.333 = .184630185
TOTAL: 1.293520185
R12": (10*3)*.5*.666*.333 = 3.32667
Markerlight RR1's: (15)*(.333)*.5*.666*.333 = .553890555
TOTAL: 3.88056055
VS 5EQ
R24": (10)*.5*.5*.166 = .415
Markerlight RR1's: (5)*(.333)*.5*.5*.166 = .0690975
TOTAL: .4840975
R12": (10*3)*.5*.5*.166 = 1.245
Markerlight RR1's: (15)*(.333)*.5*.5*.166 = .2072925
TOTAL: 1.4522925

Short version: Don't underestimate sheer volume of fire - Lasguns generally tie or win out against your T5 and down targets; and when they get in Rapid Fire range (12"-15", 4 shots*4ppm > 3shots*7ppm [yes, they're missing the ppm of commanders and fireblades; if you made a brick of Firewarriors, you may be able to get the PPM to even out (since 1 Cadre Fireblade can buff a large number of units, while you need UNITS/2 in Company Commanders), if not get closer together after all calculations...]; and again, don't forget that the Guardsman have 21wounds to the Firewarriors 11wounds - and take up additional board space, which is a huge deal.

Firewarrior's S5 guns start to win out when you start shooting T6-T9 models; add in the +1 to wound rolls stratagem, and they can do real work.

I'll make an Overwatch post some time in the future, maybe; but with Firewarriors having 3shots VS 2//4shots (if IG interweave the 20Guardsman (2 squads), they get an additional set of overwatches), and potentially RR1's (not likely, but maybe they'll get a markerlight on a random target beforehand); it'll be close. I think interlocked IG squads will come out on top (40 shots vs 30 shots) by a little - if you add in other Firewarrior squads nearby, they'll come out ahead - but, that's even more points (albeit ones that the IG couldn't leverage even if they wanted to, unless they mix 3 infantry squads together... Mordian Doctrine ties with T'au Doctrine (hitting on 5+s), so... it's really a wash.

Dandelion wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

I have to disagree. Having defined strengths and weaknesses allows for 2 things
1. Thematic differences in armies that match fluff
2. Counters to exist to allow for a level of balance
I like to use card games for examples like this and Hearthstone is my favorite. You can typically build early mid and late game decks with each hero giving you a strength and weakness to each one. Having weaknesses allows for counter decks to be made if any one deck becomes to prominent in the meta. Take the scourge that was a pirate warrior a rush deck that had 2 cards that were too cheap and thus dominated the meta..... That was until people like me ran obvious counter decks. I ran a board clear warrior and farmed up to legends in an afternoon. My win rate was low against everything else but the large amount of PW allowed me to have an overall amazing win percentage. The same thing happened when quest rogue first dropped, I made a basic zoo lock and got legends in a day. Having a defined weakness allows for the community to self-nerf something by running a hard counter. If you create factions with no weakness not only do they have no flavor whatsoever its also impossible to build a clear counter.

I'm personally wholly uninterested in playing that kind of card game. In fact, anything that makes 40k closer to a card game is a no from me. Why should I bother when I can get the same tactical depth with cards?
Besides, what weaknesses to the factions actually have? AFAIK every faction has at least one unit for shooting/melee/anti-infantry/anti-tank.

Also thematic differences don't require the faction as a whole to have weaknesses. Marines have tough infantry that serve a multitude of roles. That's just how they are structured, it's not a weakness of itself. Guard use versatile infantry backed with heavy weapons and numerous vehicles. Again that's a structure not a strength or weakness. Tau have suits designed to fulfill multiple roles and backed by solid light infantry and grav tanks, even kroot cover their melee "weakness".

So you want a guard army to be as viable in CC as khorne?
Nurgle should be as fast as eldar?
SM should have the body count capabilities of nids?
a game where armies are all identically capable at everything sounds bland and boring. If i wanted that i would go play chess

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Being an ork player, I recognize that guard infantry have very similar statistical outcome with some edge cases. Similar defense (44% IG vs 42% Ork chance to be kill against bolters, with orks being better vs 6/7 str and ig better at str 8 and higher), similar ranged output (16.6r% to wound vs t4 for lasguns and shootas, with the shoota having more shots 13"-18", lasgun at 19"-24".

But Orks have +1S and A, native charge reroll, the ability to get more attacks, and one of the best morale boosting rules in the game.

I simply don't believe that's all worth one point.

And the biggest problem with your math? you forgot that you get 3 guardsmen for every 2 orkz.

Basics, 3 guardsmen get 3 shots from 19-24 inches while the Orkz get zero. From 13-18 the Orkz get 4 shots to the guardsmens 3. And from 1-12 the guard get 6 shots to the orkz 4. So in a 24 inch range, orkz do better for 6 inches compared to the guards 18 inches. Ranged wise its heavily in favor of the guard. They also get heavy weapons worth taking and specialist weapons worth taking. Orkz get big shootas and Rokkitz, all of which are useless and over priced. Add to that the fact that the Guard will always have an officer nearby and then you factor in the orders bonus and yeah, shooting goes to Guard. IN CC Orkz are superior, not even going to debate that.

And again, durability wise, it goes to Guard hands down. Yes T4 is better then T3 and that is basically cancelled out by 5+ being better then 6+ but guard have the added bonus of being able to camp in cover and use longer ranged weapons to be useful where as the orkz need to be advancing every turn to get full use out of their CC abilities. So realistically you are seeing Guard with 4+ saves not 5+.

To summarize, Orkz are better overall due to T, S and # of attacks, but since most of their benefits are CC oriented they aren't as powerful as they appear. Guard are significantly better at ranged combat and are better at camping objectives and utilizing that advantage. Overall I think they are 1 point apart, not 2. I would not lower the cost of Ork boyz though because I am sick and tired of cheap boyz hordes, but yeah i could see guard going to 5ppm.

Asmodios wrote:

So you want a guard army to be as viable in CC as khorne?
Nurgle should be as fast as eldar?
SM should have the body count capabilities of nids?
a game where armies are all identically capable at everything sounds bland and boring. If i wanted that i would go play chess

Guard can run loads ogryn/bullgryn and they are good. There's also catachan and priests so they probably already are.
Nurgle has several fast units, namely drones. Advancing Death Guard are also pretty spry.
Body count is not a weakness of itself. It's a structural difference.
And many people think chess is fun and interesting because victory hinges much more on tactical ability than deck building.

Basically my point is that every army has an answer to every unit wether it's a tank or infantry. If they weren't then whole factions would get hard countered in matchups against certain other factions. And that's no bueno.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Being an ork player, I recognize that guard infantry have very similar statistical outcome with some edge cases. Similar defense (44% IG vs 42% Ork chance to be kill against bolters, with orks being better vs 6/7 str and ig better at str 8 and higher), similar ranged output (16.6r% to wound vs t4 for lasguns and shootas, with the shoota having more shots 13"-18", lasgun at 19"-24".

But Orks have +1S and A, native charge reroll, the ability to get more attacks, and one of the best morale boosting rules in the game.

I simply don't believe that's all worth one point.

And the biggest problem with your math? you forgot that you get 3 guardsmen for every 2 orkz.

Basics, 3 guardsmen get 3 shots from 19-24 inches while the Orkz get zero. From 13-18 the Orkz get 4 shots to the guardsmens 3. And from 1-12 the guard get 6 shots to the orkz 4. So in a 24 inch range, orkz do better for 6 inches compared to the guards 18 inches. Ranged wise its heavily in favor of the guard. They also get heavy weapons worth taking and specialist weapons worth taking. Orkz get big shootas and Rokkitz, all of which are useless and over priced. Add to that the fact that the Guard will always have an officer nearby and then you factor in the orders bonus and yeah, shooting goes to Guard. IN CC Orkz are superior, not even going to debate that.

And again, durability wise, it goes to Guard hands down. Yes T4 is better then T3 and that is basically cancelled out by 5+ being better then 6+ but guard have the added bonus of being able to camp in cover and use longer ranged weapons to be useful where as the orkz need to be advancing every turn to get full use out of their CC abilities. So realistically you are seeing Guard with 4+ saves not 5+.

To summarize, Orkz are better overall due to T, S and # of attacks, but since most of their benefits are CC oriented they aren't as powerful as they appear. Guard are significantly better at ranged combat and are better at camping objectives and utilizing that advantage. Overall I think they are 1 point apart, not 2. I would not lower the cost of Ork boyz though because I am sick and tired of cheap boyz hordes, but yeah i could see guard going to 5ppm.

This.

Anyone who forgets that cc orks don't get a turn 1 attack should factor this into their equation. For orks, it's a 4-6 turn game, not a 5-7 turn game.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Being an ork player, I recognize that guard infantry have very similar statistical outcome with some edge cases. Similar defense (44% IG vs 42% Ork chance to be kill against bolters, with orks being better vs 6/7 str and ig better at str 8 and higher), similar ranged output (16.6r% to wound vs t4 for lasguns and shootas, with the shoota having more shots 13"-18", lasgun at 19"-24".

But Orks have +1S and A, native charge reroll, the ability to get more attacks, and one of the best morale boosting rules in the game.

I simply don't believe that's all worth one point.

And the biggest problem with your math? you forgot that you get 3 guardsmen for every 2 orkz.

Basics, 3 guardsmen get 3 shots from 19-24 inches while the Orkz get zero. From 13-18 the Orkz get 4 shots to the guardsmens 3. And from 1-12 the guard get 6 shots to the orkz 4. So in a 24 inch range, orkz do better for 6 inches compared to the guards 18 inches. Ranged wise its heavily in favor of the guard. They also get heavy weapons worth taking and specialist weapons worth taking. Orkz get big shootas and Rokkitz, all of which are useless and over priced. Add to that the fact that the Guard will always have an officer nearby and then you factor in the orders bonus and yeah, shooting goes to Guard. IN CC Orkz are superior, not even going to debate that.

And again, durability wise, it goes to Guard hands down. Yes T4 is better then T3 and that is basically cancelled out by 5+ being better then 6+ but guard have the added bonus of being able to camp in cover and use longer ranged weapons to be useful where as the orkz need to be advancing every turn to get full use out of their CC abilities. So realistically you are seeing Guard with 4+ saves not 5+.

To summarize, Orkz are better overall due to T, S and # of attacks, but since most of their benefits are CC oriented they aren't as powerful as they appear. Guard are significantly better at ranged combat and are better at camping objectives and utilizing that advantage. Overall I think they are 1 point apart, not 2. I would not lower the cost of Ork boyz though because I am sick and tired of cheap boyz hordes, but yeah i could see guard going to 5ppm.

That sums up my feelings too.

Also, Guardsman have +50% more wounds versus Orks, at least at 4ppm.

45 Guardsman = 180 points
30 Orks = 180 points

To be fair though, you lose ~7.5 Guardsman if you want the double-lasgun shot order, or other ones.

fe40k wrote:
Guardsman deserve to be 5ppm. Quoting two of my different responses; the first is Guardsman vs Firewarriors (T3), the second is Guardsman/Firewarriors vs MEQ/5EQ (T4/T5).

Spoiler:

This is untrue. Guardsman > Firewarriors, and all other troopers, pound for pound.

Guardsman - 4ppm
Range 24" Rapid Fire 1, S3, AP-0

Firewarrior - 7ppm
Range 30", Rapid Fire 1, S5, AP-0

17 Guardsman+1 Boltgun (Sergeant) = 68+1pts
10 Firewarriors = 70 points

17 Guardsman shooting at Firewarriors, Range24"
16 Lasgun shots; 16*.5*.5*.5 = 2 unsaved wounds
1 Boltgun shot; 1*.5*.666*.5 = 0.1665 unsaved wounds
TOTAL: 2.1665

10 Firewarriors shooting at Guardsman, Range30"
10 Pulse Rifle shots; 10*.5*.666*.666 = 2.21778 unsaved wounds
TOTAL: 2.21778

Unbuffed; Tau win outside of Rapid Fire range - but, the Guardsman have 17 wounds versus the Firewarriors 10; which is a massive deal in terms of durability, 58.8% more durable. The moment the shooting goes past one rounds worth, Guardsman>Firewarriors.

Let's talk buffs:
20 Guardsman(2 Boltguns)+1 Company Commander = 112pts
10 Firewarriors+1 Cadre Fireblade = 112pts

20 Guardsman(2 Boltguns)+1 Company Commander (issuing FRSRF x2) shooting at Firewarriors, Range12"
18*4 Lasgun shots: 72*.5*.5*.5 = 9 unsaved wounds
2 Boltgun shots: 2*.5*.5*.5 = .25 unsaved wouds
TOTAL: 9.25

10 Firewarriors+1 Cadre Fireblade, shooting at Guardsman, Range15"
1 Markerlight shot: 1*.8333 = ~1 hit
10*3 Pulse Rifle shots: 10*.5*.666*.666 = 6.65334 unsaved wounds
Rerolling the 1's adds... 5*(.333)*.5*.666*.666 = .277xxx unsaved wounds
TOTAL: 6.93034

Buffed: It's not even close. Guardsman >>> Firewarriors, while having 21 wounds VS 11 wounds. - Speaking of the value of traits, Guardsman can get the same range as Firewarriors, unless the Firewarriors also take the +range trait. Firewarriors can get +1cover save, which brings down 18*4 Lasgun shots expected output to... 5.994, a significant reduction - but still not enough to win them a prolonged shootout; and they lose it if they move. If Guardsman don't have to move either, they could also take the re-roll 1's trait, which adds... 1.4985 unsaved wounds, for 18*4 Lasgun shots.

Guardsman do not deserve to be 4ppm under any circumstances; at least not with their statline, relative to the stats/prices of other factions armies. Adding in a 30PPM Company Commander brings a Guardsman squad up to 5.5PPM/7PPM (2/1 squads buffed by CompanyCommander); which sounds reasonable, but STILL blows out other factions troopers. 4pts = 1W, Sv5+, and 1/2/4 Lasgun shots.

Guardsman win the infantry war point for point, and back that up with an excessive number of Artillery/Tank units (up to 3x as many models as other factions, thanks to squadrons), all of which are competitive in their own right.

Let's talk buffs:
20 Guardsman(2 Boltguns)+1 Company Commander = 112pts
10 Firewarriors+1 Cadre Fireblade = 112pts
VS
MEQ; T4, Sv3+
5EQ (Custodes); T5, Sv2+

20 Guardsman(2 Boltguns)+1 Company Commander (issuing FRSRF x2) shooting at MEQ, Range12"
[I'm leaving the 2 Boltguns and 1 Laspistol out of the equations below; it's a lot more lines/calculations for what ultimately amounts to... a smaller bonus than what it's worth for this comparison.]
VS MEQ
R24": (18)*.5*.333*.333 = .998001
Cadia RR1's: (9)*(.333)*.5*.333*.333 = .1661671665
TOTAL: 1.1641681665
R12": (18*4)*.5*.333*.333 = 3.992004
Cadia RR1's: (36)*(.333)*.5*.333*.333 = .664668666
TOTAL: 4.656672666
VS 5EQ
R24": (18)*.5*.333*.166 = .497502
Cadia RR1's: (9)*(.333)*.5*.333*.166 = .082834083
TOTAL: .580336083
R12": (18*4)*.5*.333*.166 = 1.990008
Cadia RR1's: (36)*(.333)*.5*.333*.166 = .331336332
TOTAL: 2.321344332

10 Firewarriors+1 Cadre Fireblade, shooting at MEQ, Range15"
VS MEQ
R24": (10)*.5*.666*.333 = 1.10889
Markerlight RR1's: (5).(.333)*.5*.666*.333 = .184630185
TOTAL: 1.293520185
R12": (10*3)*.5*.666*.333 = 3.32667
Markerlight RR1's: (15)*(.333)*.5*.666*.333 = .553890555
TOTAL: 3.88056055
VS 5EQ
R24": (10)*.5*.5*.166 = .415
Markerlight RR1's: (5)*(.333)*.5*.5*.166 = .0690975
TOTAL: .4840975
R12": (10*3)*.5*.5*.166 = 1.245
Markerlight RR1's: (15)*(.333)*.5*.5*.166 = .2072925
TOTAL: 1.4522925

Short version: Don't underestimate sheer volume of fire - Lasguns generally tie or win out against your T5 and down targets; and when they get in Rapid Fire range (12"-15", 4 shots*4ppm > 3shots*7ppm [yes, they're missing the ppm of commanders and fireblades; if you made a brick of Firewarriors, you may be able to get the PPM to even out (since 1 Cadre Fireblade can buff a large number of units, while you need UNITS/2 in Company Commanders), if not get closer together after all calculations...]; and again, don't forget that the Guardsman have 21wounds to the Firewarriors 11wounds - and take up additional board space, which is a huge deal.

Firewarrior's S5 guns start to win out when you start shooting T6-T9 models; add in the +1 to wound rolls stratagem, and they can do real work.

I'll make an Overwatch post some time in the future, maybe; but with Firewarriors having 3shots VS 2//4shots (if IG interweave the 20Guardsman (2 squads), they get an additional set of overwatches), and potentially RR1's (not likely, but maybe they'll get a markerlight on a random target beforehand); it'll be close. I think interlocked IG squads will come out on top (40 shots vs 30 shots) by a little - if you add in other Firewarrior squads nearby, they'll come out ahead - but, that's even more points (albeit ones that the IG couldn't leverage even if they wanted to, unless they mix 3 infantry squads together... Mordian Doctrine ties with T'au Doctrine (hitting on 5+s), so... it's really a wash.

This proves the point Infantry squads shouldn't be wiping the floor with everyone in a shoot out. Especially against the army thats supposed to have over powered shooting to make up for absolutely zero psychic powers and no CC ability.
Right now the main reason that no one take conscripts is why would you? They cost the same as infantry squads but are worse, infantry squads out perform every other 4ppm units in the game model for model and a number of other units point for point.
Conscripts at 4ppm, IS at 5ppm and Vets at 6 ppm gives each unit a purpose.

Take firewarriors they have the same BS get +1pt for a better save plus +2 for a better gun and -1 for worse WS which would make FW 6ppm to compete with guard infantry. At 6ppm firewarriors would be Alitoc broken.

Dandelion wrote:
Also thematic differences don't require the faction as a whole to have weaknesses. Marines have tough infantry that serve a multitude of roles. That's just how they are structured, it's not a weakness of itself. Guard use versatile infantry backed with heavy weapons and numerous vehicles. Again that's a structure not a strength or weakness. Tau have suits designed to fulfill multiple roles and backed by solid light infantry and grav tanks, even kroot cover their melee "weakness".

If those "thematic differences" don't translate into strengths and weaknesses then they are only aesthetic differences. Sure, you can have a given amount of anti-tank firepower represented by single models on 25mm bases or heavy weapon teams on 60mm bases but if both are equally effective then it's no different from painting your Ultramarines yellow and calling them a whole new faction. Having meaningful gameplay differences requires variation, and if you don't want to have one faction be straight better than the other (you don't) then you need to have different strengths and weaknesses. The 25mm heavy weapons have meatshields in the squad and therefore better durability, the 60mm heavy weapons have more point efficiency on offense because they lack meatshields but lose firepower faster if attacked. Etc. Same thing at the faction level. 8th edition's over-homogenization and soup rules have damaged the concept, but each faction does have an identity in terms of strengths and weaknesses:

Space marines have no weaknesses but aren't top-tier at anything either. Their versatile elite infantry will always be better than the opponent's weakest point and able to attack there, but will always be weaker than the opponent's strongest point and vulnerable to attack. But neither of these differences will be by as large a margin as you might find with other comparisons. Winning depends on tactical flexibility and being able to use the same unit in different roles depending on the opponent.

Eldar are the opposite. Their specialists are each top-tier in their specific role, but weak at any other role. They will always have the best option for attacking each point in an opposing army, but if they are out-played and their specialists have to go up against the wrong target they get wiped off the table. Winning depends on superior execution of the Eldar plan, getting the specialists to their correct targets and staying one step ahead of the enemy to keep their massive weak points away from danger.

Imperial Guard are great as a defensive gunline but have poor force projection. A layered defensive force of heavy armor screened by cheap and super-efficient infantry is very hard to break, but their options for pushing up the table and claiming objectives are much more limited and mostly glass cannons that struggle to hold an objective for multiple turns. Winning depends on balancing point allocations between locking down the "home" objectives and contesting the rest of the table, and identifying the correct timing to send the storm troopers/rough riders/etc into battle for their one shot at victory.

Tau have great mid-range mobile shooting but limited long-range firepower and nonexistent melee ability. Anything getting into melee with them wins and their ability to make an IG-style gunline is limited to a handful of railguns, but JSJ and fast tanks let them stay mobile without sacrificing firepower. Winning depends on managing the delicate balance between getting close enough to deliver effective offense and staying away from charges.

Orks are great at overwhelming the enemy in a horde of bodies but helpless at long range. They won't do much in the opening besides move forward, but once they get into combat sheer weight of numbers will beat almost anything. Winning depends on coordinating the attack, making sure that the whole green tide makes its charges simultaneously without getting too many models lost as casualties or stalled outside threat range.

Etc.

See how each army has a plan for winning, but also has a vulnerability that can be attacked? And each of those pairings is meaningfully different from the others? That's how you make interesting faction diversity.

Guard player reporting.

I have said it in other threads. I would be fine with guardsmen going up to 5ppm if it means skitarii rangers, fire warriors, and kabalites all went up in price as well. Until that happens, it's a hard no from me.

Cheap infantry meatshields is something that guard is supposed to do well as a faction.

Dandelion wrote:
A lot of people are for 5pt guardsmen, including guard players. However, as is expected, there are many who think 4pt guard is fine.
Kanluwen should be along shortly to tell you why 5pt guard is bad.

I was in the 5ppm camp until the commissars lost their seriously crazy ld abilities. Nowadays with the amount of anti horde weapons out there 4ppm doesn't seem as ridiculous as it did. Used to be we had the best morale in the game. Nowadays we're actually vulnerable to leadership shock again and more tricks are being used to actually remove or get around the screens guardsmen provide. Captain smash is a great example, guardsmen screens are almost entirely incapable of stopping him.

The big issue is that guardsmen can be allied to half the armies in the game and you'd be stupid not to for the cp they provide. Allies drastically need to be reworked because as it sits you could make guardsmen 6ppm and they would still be abused by soup lists for the regenerating cp and being the cheapest decent troop tax around.

Ironically guardsmen are an issue in almost every list except a pure IG army. Make it where knights, space marines, and other imperium armies can't use us as a crutch/cheaper troop tax and guardsmen would be fine where they are. You don't do that by upping their price, but by reworking how ally detachments work so 3 squads of infantry and a couple officers aren't leading your whole army and providing half it's command points. Locking CP to the detachment or <keyword> that generates it is the only way you're going to end that. If you try to fix it with a points change to guardsmen all you'll do is Nerf IG's most iconic unit and the tournament crowd will just sub in scions, nothing serious will change.

Dandelion wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

So you want a guard army to be as viable in CC as khorne?
Nurgle should be as fast as eldar?
SM should have the body count capabilities of nids?
a game where armies are all identically capable at everything sounds bland and boring. If i wanted that i would go play chess

Guard can run loads ogryn/bullgryn and they are good. There's also catachan and priests so they probably already are.
Nurgle has several fast units, namely drones. Advancing Death Guard are also pretty spry.
Body count is not a weakness of itself. It's a structural difference.
And many people think chess is fun and interesting because victory hinges much more on tactical ability than deck building.

Basically my point is that every army has an answer to every unit wether it's a tank or infantry. If they weren't then whole factions would get hard countered in matchups against certain other factions. And that's no bueno.

No, every army has an option but not a clone that can fill in.
If guard had a knight they wouldn't need to soup it in
If guard had jet bike captains they wouldn't need to soup it in
Yes, chess is popular but I assume there is a reason we are all on a WH board discussing WH and not chess. I could buy WH figures and play chess with them.... The fact is that's not what I'm looking for. I don't want the only thing differentiating my IG army from my brothers thousand suns to be the physical models and paint.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
Also thematic differences don't require the faction as a whole to have weaknesses. Marines have tough infantry that serve a multitude of roles. That's just how they are structured, it's not a weakness of itself. Guard use versatile infantry backed with heavy weapons and numerous vehicles. Again that's a structure not a strength or weakness. Tau have suits designed to fulfill multiple roles and backed by solid light infantry and grav tanks, even kroot cover their melee "weakness".

If those "thematic differences" don't translate into strengths and weaknesses then they are only aesthetic differences. Sure, you can have a given amount of anti-tank firepower represented by single models on 25mm bases or heavy weapon teams on 60mm bases but if both are equally effective then it's no different from painting your Ultramarines yellow and calling them a whole new faction. Having meaningful gameplay differences requires variation, and if you don't want to have one faction be straight better than the other (you don't) then you need to have different strengths and weaknesses. The 25mm heavy weapons have meatshields in the squad and therefore better durability, the 60mm heavy weapons have more point efficiency on offense because they lack meatshields but lose firepower faster if attacked. Etc. Same thing at the faction level. 8th edition's over-homogenization and soup rules have damaged the concept, but each faction does have an identity in terms of strengths and weaknesses:

Space marines have no weaknesses but aren't top-tier at anything either. Their versatile elite infantry will always be better than the opponent's weakest point and able to attack there, but will always be weaker than the opponent's strongest point and vulnerable to attack. But neither of these differences will be by as large a margin as you might find with other comparisons. Winning depends on tactical flexibility and being able to use the same unit in different roles depending on the opponent.

Eldar are the opposite. Their specialists are each top-tier in their specific role, but weak at any other role. They will always have the best option for attacking each point in an opposing army, but if they are out-played and their specialists have to go up against the wrong target they get wiped off the table. Winning depends on superior execution of the Eldar plan, getting the specialists to their correct targets and staying one step ahead of the enemy to keep their massive weak points away from danger.

Imperial Guard are great as a defensive gunline but have poor force projection. A layered defensive force of heavy armor screened by cheap and super-efficient infantry is very hard to break, but their options for pushing up the table and claiming objectives are much more limited and mostly glass cannons that struggle to hold an objective for multiple turns. Winning depends on balancing point allocations between locking down the "home" objectives and contesting the rest of the table, and identifying the correct timing to send the storm troopers/rough riders/etc into battle for their one shot at victory.

Tau have great mid-range mobile shooting but limited long-range firepower and nonexistent melee ability. Anything getting into melee with them wins and their ability to make an IG-style gunline is limited to a handful of railguns, but JSJ and fast tanks let them stay mobile without sacrificing firepower. Winning depends on managing the delicate balance between getting close enough to deliver effective offense and staying away from charges.

Orks are great at overwhelming the enemy in a horde of bodies but helpless at long range. They won't do much in the opening besides move forward, but once they get into combat sheer weight of numbers will beat almost anything. Winning depends on coordinating the attack, making sure that the whole green tide makes its charges simultaneously without getting too many models lost as casualties or stalled outside threat range.

Etc.

See how each army has a plan for winning, but also has a vulnerability that can be attacked? And each of those pairings is meaningfully different from the others? That's how you make interesting faction diversity.

^
Very well put

Except right now guard outshoot tau even at mid range firefights.

Also JSJ hasn't been a thing since 8th edition dropped.

Spoletta wrote:

After all, it's not like a 5+ save for 4 points is something that only IS have, it that were truly OP then leviathan termagants would be as well (6+/6+++ is roughly equivalent).

Errr that comes at the cost of their Fleet buff, as well as needing a buff unit within 6 inches at all times. Guardsmen already have it built in. Giving Guard this same treatment and factoring in army bonuses, they become S4 with 2A, as well as a unit near a that gives out 2 orders, making them again the much stronger choice by far. As you already mentioned they have much better shooting, this comparison does more to highlight how much better they are than similarly priced options.

 Peregrine wrote:


Imperial Guard are great as a defensive gunline but have poor force projection. A layered defensive force of heavy armor screened by cheap and super-efficient infantry is very hard to break, but their options for pushing up the table and claiming objectives are much more limited and mostly glass cannons that struggle to hold an objective for multiple turns. Winning depends on balancing point allocations between locking down the "home" objectives and contesting the rest of the table, and identifying the correct timing to send the storm troopers/rough riders/etc into battle for their one shot at victory.

Why do you weigh in on competitive play, when you admit you don't care or understand this game competitively, or follow the competitive scene at all?

Do you know what the top Guard armies that won were using?

Maxed out squads of obsec Catachan infantry that push up the board. At 4 points with a 5+, Guardsmen are almost definitely the tankiest infantry in the game point for point. So you are factually and objectively incorrect.

 Peregrine wrote:

See how each army has a plan for winning, but also has a vulnerability that can be attacked? And each of those pairings is meaningfully different from the others? That's how you make interesting faction diversity.

See how you just invented a weakness that they don't currently have, and used this to push some narrative that they are this balanced army? Saying something doesn't make it so. The fact that Guard are 4pts right now is exactly why your logic for argument against this change is actually supporting the change, you just don't have the grip on the game necessary to understand, and that's by your own self-admittance.

Asmodios wrote:

There wasn't a single pure guard army that placed...... go back and read

There wasn't a single pure anything list that placed, showing how utterly absurd your criteria is for judging what is doing well at a competitive level. A fact you haven't acknowledged once, while having the hide to accusing others of ignoring points, because you're really bad at this.

Asmodios wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
You are the walking definition of "moving the goalposts", and even when it comes to those moving nets you aren't being even remotely objective, you came in here downplaying Guard before you even knew what the lists were.

I also aparently knew exactly what the lists were by listening to podcasts just wanted to be safe and not present it as fact as i did not have them infront of me..... but it iss 100% what i listened to and now you confirmed it.

No. This is what you said the top Guard lists were:

Asmodios wrote:
none of those top guard lists were mono guard. While some were guard dominate they still included things like smash captains and jet bikes.

Out of the 3 lists in question, not a single one ran Custodes, and only 1 ran Jump Captains. So the reality was you were 16% accurate in what claimed it was. And you got that 16% by chance, not by knowing anything. So yeah, you definitely came in here downplaying before you even knew what the lists in question were. Lol.

 SHUPPET wrote:
Nonsense.

Perhaps you could pay more attention to the context, and notice that the post you're quoting is a reply to a discussion of game design principles about faction identity and strengths and weaknesses, not the state of competitive 40k right now? Those faction descriptions are an example of how it should be done, not an analysis of the current metagame in the over-homogenized mess of 8th.

 SHUPPET wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

After all, it's not like a 5+ save for 4 points is something that only IS have, it that were truly OP then leviathan termagants would be as well (6+/6+++ is roughly equivalent).

Errr that comes at the cost of their Fleet buff, as well as needing a buff unit within 6 inches at all times. Guardsmen already have it built in. Giving Guard this same treatment and factoring in army bonuses, they become S4 with 2A, as well as a unit near a that gives out 2 orders, making them again the much stronger choice by far. As you already mentioned they have much better shooting, this comparison does more to highlight how much better they are than similarly priced options.

 Peregrine wrote:


Imperial Guard are great as a defensive gunline but have poor force projection. A layered defensive force of heavy armor screened by cheap and super-efficient infantry is very hard to break, but their options for pushing up the table and claiming objectives are much more limited and mostly glass cannons that struggle to hold an objective for multiple turns. Winning depends on balancing point allocations between locking down the "home" objectives and contesting the rest of the table, and identifying the correct timing to send the storm troopers/rough riders/etc into battle for their one shot at victory.

Why do you weigh in on competitive play, when you admit you don't care or understand this game competitively, or follow the competitive scene at all?

Do you know what the top Guard armies that won were using?

Maxed out squads of obsec Catachan infantry that push up the board. At 4 points with a 5+, Guardsmen are almost definitely the tankiest infantry in the game point for point. So you are factually and objectively incorrect.

 Peregrine wrote:

See how each army has a plan for winning, but also has a vulnerability that can be attacked? And each of those pairings is meaningfully different from the others? That's how you make interesting faction diversity.

See how you just invented a weakness that they don't currently have, and used this to push some narrative that they are this balanced army? Saying something doesn't make it so. The fact that Guard are 4pts right now is exactly why your logic for argument against this change is actually supporting the change, you just don't have the grip on the game necessary to understand, and that's by your own self-admittance.

Asmodios wrote:

There wasn't a single pure guard army that placed...... go back and read

There wasn't a single pure anything list that placed, showing how utterly absurd your criteria is for judging what is doing well at a competitive level. A fact you haven't acknowledged once, while having the hide to accusing others of ignoring points, because you're really bad at this.

Asmodios wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
You are the walking definition of "moving the goalposts", and even when it comes to those moving nets you aren't being even remotely objective, you came in here downplaying Guard before you even knew what the lists were.

I also aparently knew exactly what the lists were by listening to podcasts just wanted to be safe and not present it as fact as i did not have them infront of me..... but it iss 100% what i listened to and now you confirmed it.

No. This is what you said the top Guard lists were:

Asmodios wrote:
none of those top guard lists were mono guard. While some were guard dominate they still included things like smash captains and jet bikes.

Out of the 3 lists in question, not a single one ran Custodes, and only 1 ran Jump Captains. So the reality was you were 16% accurate in what claimed it was. And you got that 16% by chance, not by knowing anything. So yeah, you definitely came in here downplaying before you even knew what the lists in question were. Lol.

So you are making my point once again..... There wasn't anything but soup that placed..... so soup is the real issue pushing out any army that cant soup.

Also, way to selectively cut out my part of the post where i mentioned knights. You have continued to do this regardless of how many time I mention not just the knights but also the issue being soup in general.

Yes, only allies placed, and this is how the tournament scene looks, because why would you not take allies? Of those allied armies, Guard primarys were head and shoulders above the rest. This is what people are trying to change with the nerf. If you are asking for nerfs to allies, I already said I agree with that. The problem is, that nerfs every other IoM the hardest and again leaves Guard by far the strongest solo army, as the primaries, and common sense will prove.

Asmodios wrote:


Also, way to selectively cut out my part of the post where i mentioned knights. You have continued to do this regardless of how many time I mention not just the knights but also the issue being soup in general.

I can't respond to every single statement you made since I went to sleep last night, because it would be a 3 page wall, and mostly of stuff that I have already addressed and that others have addressed after me, such as Knights, who as I said, I also think are too much right now.

This thread is about IG, hence why I'm not letting you play misdirection tactics like this.

Ice_can wrote:

fe40k wrote:
Guardsman deserve to be 5ppm. Quoting two of my different responses; the first is Guardsman vs Firewarriors (T3), the second is Guardsman/Firewarriors vs MEQ/5EQ (T4/T5).

Spoiler:

This is untrue. Guardsman > Firewarriors, and all other troopers, pound for pound.

Guardsman - 4ppm
Range 24" Rapid Fire 1, S3, AP-0

Firewarrior - 7ppm
Range 30", Rapid Fire 1, S5, AP-0

17 Guardsman+1 Boltgun (Sergeant) = 68+1pts
10 Firewarriors = 70 points

17 Guardsman shooting at Firewarriors, Range24"
16 Lasgun shots; 16*.5*.5*.5 = 2 unsaved wounds
1 Boltgun shot; 1*.5*.666*.5 = 0.1665 unsaved wounds
TOTAL: 2.1665

10 Firewarriors shooting at Guardsman, Range30"
10 Pulse Rifle shots; 10*.5*.666*.666 = 2.21778 unsaved wounds
TOTAL: 2.21778

Unbuffed; Tau win outside of Rapid Fire range - but, the Guardsman have 17 wounds versus the Firewarriors 10; which is a massive deal in terms of durability, 58.8% more durable. The moment the shooting goes past one rounds worth, Guardsman>Firewarriors.

Let's talk buffs:
20 Guardsman(2 Boltguns)+1 Company Commander = 112pts
10 Firewarriors+1 Cadre Fireblade = 112pts

20 Guardsman(2 Boltguns)+1 Company Commander (issuing FRSRF x2) shooting at Firewarriors, Range12"
18*4 Lasgun shots: 72*.5*.5*.5 = 9 unsaved wounds
2 Boltgun shots: 2*.5*.5*.5 = .25 unsaved wouds
TOTAL: 9.25

10 Firewarriors+1 Cadre Fireblade, shooting at Guardsman, Range15"
1 Markerlight shot: 1*.8333 = ~1 hit
10*3 Pulse Rifle shots: 10*.5*.666*.666 = 6.65334 unsaved wounds
Rerolling the 1's adds... 5*(.333)*.5*.666*.666 = .277xxx unsaved wounds
TOTAL: 6.93034

Buffed: It's not even close. Guardsman >>> Firewarriors, while having 21 wounds VS 11 wounds. - Speaking of the value of traits, Guardsman can get the same range as Firewarriors, unless the Firewarriors also take the +range trait. Firewarriors can get +1cover save, which brings down 18*4 Lasgun shots expected output to... 5.994, a significant reduction - but still not enough to win them a prolonged shootout; and they lose it if they move. If Guardsman don't have to move either, they could also take the re-roll 1's trait, which adds... 1.4985 unsaved wounds, for 18*4 Lasgun shots.

Guardsman do not deserve to be 4ppm under any circumstances; at least not with their statline, relative to the stats/prices of other factions armies. Adding in a 30PPM Company Commander brings a Guardsman squad up to 5.5PPM/7PPM (2/1 squads buffed by CompanyCommander); which sounds reasonable, but STILL blows out other factions troopers. 4pts = 1W, Sv5+, and 1/2/4 Lasgun shots.

Guardsman win the infantry war point for point, and back that up with an excessive number of Artillery/Tank units (up to 3x as many models as other factions, thanks to squadrons), all of which are competitive in their own right.

Let's talk buffs:
20 Guardsman(2 Boltguns)+1 Company Commander = 112pts
10 Firewarriors+1 Cadre Fireblade = 112pts
VS
MEQ; T4, Sv3+
5EQ (Custodes); T5, Sv2+

20 Guardsman(2 Boltguns)+1 Company Commander (issuing FRSRF x2) shooting at MEQ, Range12"
[I'm leaving the 2 Boltguns and 1 Laspistol out of the equations below; it's a lot more lines/calculations for what ultimately amounts to... a smaller bonus than what it's worth for this comparison.]
VS MEQ
R24": (18)*.5*.333*.333 = .998001
Cadia RR1's: (9)*(.333)*.5*.333*.333 = .1661671665
TOTAL: 1.1641681665
R12": (18*4)*.5*.333*.333 = 3.992004
Cadia RR1's: (36)*(.333)*.5*.333*.333 = .664668666
TOTAL: 4.656672666
VS 5EQ
R24": (18)*.5*.333*.166 = .497502
Cadia RR1's: (9)*(.333)*.5*.333*.166 = .082834083
TOTAL: .580336083
R12": (18*4)*.5*.333*.166 = 1.990008
Cadia RR1's: (36)*(.333)*.5*.333*.166 = .331336332
TOTAL: 2.321344332

10 Firewarriors+1 Cadre Fireblade, shooting at MEQ, Range15"
VS MEQ
R24": (10)*.5*.666*.333 = 1.10889
Markerlight RR1's: (5).(.333)*.5*.666*.333 = .184630185
TOTAL: 1.293520185
R12": (10*3)*.5*.666*.333 = 3.32667
Markerlight RR1's: (15)*(.333)*.5*.666*.333 = .553890555
TOTAL: 3.88056055
VS 5EQ
R24": (10)*.5*.5*.166 = .415
Markerlight RR1's: (5)*(.333)*.5*.5*.166 = .0690975
TOTAL: .4840975
R12": (10*3)*.5*.5*.166 = 1.245
Markerlight RR1's: (15)*(.333)*.5*.5*.166 = .2072925
TOTAL: 1.4522925

Short version: Don't underestimate sheer volume of fire - Lasguns generally tie or win out against your T5 and down targets; and when they get in Rapid Fire range (12"-15", 4 shots*4ppm > 3shots*7ppm [yes, they're missing the ppm of commanders and fireblades; if you made a brick of Firewarriors, you may be able to get the PPM to even out (since 1 Cadre Fireblade can buff a large number of units, while you need UNITS/2 in Company Commanders), if not get closer together after all calculations...]; and again, don't forget that the Guardsman have 21wounds to the Firewarriors 11wounds - and take up additional board space, which is a huge deal.

Firewarrior's S5 guns start to win out when you start shooting T6-T9 models; add in the +1 to wound rolls stratagem, and they can do real work.

I'll make an Overwatch post some time in the future, maybe; but with Firewarriors having 3shots VS 2//4shots (if IG interweave the 20Guardsman (2 squads), they get an additional set of overwatches), and potentially RR1's (not likely, but maybe they'll get a markerlight on a random target beforehand); it'll be close. I think interlocked IG squads will come out on top (40 shots vs 30 shots) by a little - if you add in other Firewarrior squads nearby, they'll come out ahead - but, that's even more points (albeit ones that the IG couldn't leverage even if they wanted to, unless they mix 3 infantry squads together... Mordian Doctrine ties with T'au Doctrine (hitting on 5+s), so... it's really a wash.

This proves the point Infantry squads shouldn't be wiping the floor with everyone in a shoot out. Especially against the army thats supposed to have over powered shooting to make up for absolutely zero psychic powers and no CC ability.
Right now the main reason that no one take conscripts is why would you? They cost the same as infantry squads but are worse, infantry squads out perform every other 4ppm units in the game model for model and a number of other units point for point.
Conscripts at 4ppm, IS at 5ppm and Vets at 6 ppm gives each unit a purpose.

Take firewarriors they have the same BS get +1pt for a better save plus +2 for a better gun and -1 for worse WS which would make FW 6ppm to compete with guard infantry. At 6ppm firewarriors would be Alitoc broken.

I play Catachans against Tau all the time. You know how many times I've gotten full squads into rapid fire range and butchered them? Maybe once haha. And I actually freaking use Chimeras! My infantry also can barely survive a charge because the transports rarely survive getting that close. Think of how good the Tau hammerhead is now with Longstrike buffing them? They all have decent anti infantry secondary weapons. When you combine the army's traits, things become infinitely less cut and dry.

In a game this dynamic it's often silly to just compare 1 unit against another. It just doesn't work that way. Fire warriors are smaller units, typically, with 30" range weapons. If they're not in cover something is wrong. They are naturally resilient to morale due to small unit number and bonding knife ritual. Add in an Ethereal for 6+FNP and a leadership bubble, now they're cooking.

The comparison of firewarriors shooting vs guardsmen shooting at each other is also disingenuous due to the prevalence of T4 basic infantry to many factions. Pulse Rifles are kind of over kill on T3 infantry. But I did enjoy your horrible math of the magically teleported into rapid fire range guardsmen against the Tau.

The Tau abilities and Stratagems can allow 30 firewarriors to seriously maim or kill a knight, because I just watched it happen and it was hilarious. I don't even want to do the math for how many guardsmen it would take to accomplish the same thing.

The truth is, it's going to take way more calculations than "this #of points of Guardsman here shooting at this #of points of this unit here annihilate them within the magic confines of my calculator" to prove to me that points need to be adjusted, not just for guardsmen but for any unit. I'm not trying to be an ass, but the Guardsman have been under attack for a year now, and the only time it was justified was with conscript spam and then they got overly nerfed. I just need better evidence that in a mono guard force, the Guardsman are "OP" at their current points cost. I knew this was going to come when the knight codex came out as everyone shifted back to an AT skew in the meta and the guard CP batteries which were going to drive the other elite codexes.

I gotta be honest, I don't see the value in these threads.

People end up just beefing at each other throwing maths, real life examples, tournament statistics etc around hoping someone will listen.

GW aren't reading this thread. Everything you write here, unless passed on to GW through their email channels (and likely even if) is a complete and utter waste if you're genuinely hoping to see change.

I personally believe IS should be 5ppm but I don't think they are the most broken thing in the game right now.

The most broken thing in the game right now, without exception, is the ability for Imperial, Chaos and Eldar players to soup. Thinking about things logically, GW already have an incredibly tough time balancing the units internally and externally even if they were unable to soup. When a player can pick and choose the best units from different factions and mash them together with no consequence, the game is far too open to extremes that we now see in the competitive meta.

Ynarri are broken.
Knights + friends are broken.
Custodes + friends are broken.
Dark Eldar + friends are broken.
Renegade Knights + friends are broken.
I'm sure there are others I can't think of right now, it's late here but I think you get the jist.

Until the above is fixed, thinking about increasing or decreasing the points cost of a specific unit by one is, to me at least, completely irrelevant.

 SHUPPET wrote:
Yes, only allies placed, and this is how the tournament scene looks, because why would you not take allies? Of those allied armies, Guard primarys were head and shoulders above the rest. This is what people are trying to change with the nerf. If you are asking for nerfs to allies, I already said I agree with that. The problem is, that nerfs every other IoM the hardest and again leaves Guard by far the strongest solo army, as the primaries, and common sense will prove.

Asmodios wrote:


Also, way to selectively cut out my part of the post where i mentioned knights. You have continued to do this regardless of how many time I mention not just the knights but also the issue being soup in general.

I can't respond to every single statement you made since I went to sleep last night, because it would be a 3 page wall, and mostly of stuff that I have already addressed and that others have addressed after me, such as Knights, who as I said, I also think are too much right now.

This thread is about IG, hence why I'm not letting you play misdirection tactics like this.

1. Its not replying to everything i post its selectively quoting them and trying to use it as a strawman to discredit the main point of my post.
2. "why would you not take allies" This quote of yours is the underlining issue. There is zero reason to not take allies. There needs to be a drawback to mixing armies or you will never be able to correctly balance the game. The fact that including soup is a "no-brainer" is evidence that it needs to be changed.

If guardsmen were 5 points per model, IG would be significantly weaker.

Then they would get over it.

I don't play IG, and I don't use them in my army as ally. But how about instead of nerfing or making goodt stuff bad, GW would fix the stuff that is bad and make it good? Why fix things that aren't broken?
Even a +40pts model can be worth using, as custodes have shown, as long as it has good rules.

Give bad units and armies good rules, and the problem of guardsman costing 4 or 5 pts, is going to be moot.

**skims first 2 pages. No mention of flamers or anti horde**
**ctrlf+f 'flamer' on page 3 and 4. No results**

Guys I hate to just drop in 4 pages into a good old forum argument, but the problem is that guardsmen are a cheap horde infantry unit, and there are currently no hard counters to cheap horde infantry. I see people mentioning that there's no points efficient way to counter them, but there's not enough talk about WHY.

The reason why is that small arms got gutted in 8th by the AP changes. Most small arms (bolters, shuriken weapons, etc) went from ignoring guard armor to not. So cheap small arms are no longer efficient anti horde weapons. And then the blast and template changes made those weapons far weaker vs multi model units too. Flamers could reliably get ~5+ hits on hordes in the past, even if they were spread out (and much more if forced together). Now they get 1d6 and cost a huge amount. Small blasts like frag missiles got usually got 3 or 4 hits, or 6+ on clumped up guys. And both those weapons used to ignore guard armor, and now they do not even ignore ork armor! And FNP is all over the place.

Remember in 5th when a tac squad could have a flamer and missile launcher nearly for free and reliably overkilled guard squads even in cover in a single round?

Morale changes have also destroyed anti horde abilities. It used to be that you could charge guardsmen with tactical marines, kill a couple, and then finish them with a sweeping advance. Now that is gone. And the new moral system isn't an adequate replacement.

I'm not saying guardsmen should stay 4 points. I'm saying that guardsmen themselves aren't the issue. We need anti-horde to get fixed, which means a fix to small arms for certain armies, and a fix to blasts and templates for everyone. Get us back to having hard counters to hordes, and then we'll see where guard need to be priced at.

Asmodios wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Yes, only allies placed, and this is how the tournament scene looks, because why would you not take allies? Of those allied armies, Guard primarys were head and shoulders above the rest. This is what people are trying to change with the nerf. If you are asking for nerfs to allies, I already said I agree with that. The problem is, that nerfs every other IoM the hardest and again leaves Guard by far the strongest solo army, as the primaries, and common sense will prove.

Asmodios wrote:


Also, way to selectively cut out my part of the post where i mentioned knights. You have continued to do this regardless of how many time I mention not just the knights but also the issue being soup in general.

I can't respond to every single statement you made since I went to sleep last night, because it would be a 3 page wall, and mostly of stuff that I have already addressed and that others have addressed after me, such as Knights, who as I said, I also think are too much right now.

This thread is about IG, hence why I'm not letting you play misdirection tactics like this.

1. Its not replying to everything i post its selectively quoting them and trying to use it as a strawman to discredit the main point of my post.
2. "why would you not take allies" This quote of yours is the underlining issue. There is zero reason to not take allies. There needs to be a drawback to mixing armies or you will never be able to correctly balance the game. The fact that including soup is a "no-brainer" is evidence that it needs to be changed.

>complains about selectively quoting
>next line, selectively quotes a fragment of my sentence and inaccurately condenses my entire argument down to that.


The problem isn't just allies, at all. There's problems definitely with Guard as a standalone faction too. If you remove allies from the game, Guardsmen are still stupidly costed infantry an incredibly powerful army. This my argument. Stop trying to rewrite what I'm saying and then throwing out accusations of Strawman fallacies. You're really bad at this.

I've seen well rationalised arguments as to why, or why not, Guardsmen should be 5pts, from people not letting bias cloud their judgement. You are not one of them. Every single post from you (and a couple of select others) screams faction-bias all through it, the transitional logic jumps you leap through don't even make sense half the time, you just repeat it ad nauseam, and then when people get tired of disproving the same point over and over you accuse them of fallacies that I don't think you even understand the definition of, for not responding with a spreadsheet of points that could basically be copy pasted from past responses already disproving what you've said.

Just give it a rest.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
**skims first 2 pages. No mention of flamers or anti horde**
**ctrlf+f 'flamer' on page 3 and 4. No results**

Guys I hate to just drop in 4 pages into a good old forum argument, but the problem is that guardsmen are a cheap horde infantry unit, and there are currently no hard counters to cheap horde infantry. I see people mentioning that there's no points efficient way to counter them, but there's not enough talk about WHY.

The reason why is that small arms got gutted in 8th by the AP changes. Most small arms (bolters, shuriken weapons, etc) went from ignoring guard armor to not. So cheap small arms are no longer efficient anti horde weapons. And then the blast and template changes made those weapons far weaker vs multi model units too. Flamers could reliably get ~5+ hits on hordes in the past, even if they were spread out (and much more if forced together). Now they get 1d6 and cost a huge amount. Small blasts like frag missiles got usually got 3 or 4 hits, or 6+ on clumped up guys. And both those weapons used to ignore guard armor, and now they do not even ignore ork armor! And FNP is all over the place.

Remember in 5th when a tac squad could have a flamer and missile launcher nearly for free and reliably overkilled guard squads even in cover in a single round?

Morale changes have also destroyed anti horde abilities. It used to be that you could charge guardsmen with tactical marines, kill a couple, and then finish them with a sweeping advance. Now that is gone. And the new moral system isn't an adequate replacement.

I'm not saying guardsmen should stay 4 points. I'm saying that guardsmen themselves aren't the issue. We need anti-horde to get fixed, which means a fix to small arms for certain armies, and a fix to blasts and templates for everyone. Get us back to having hard counters to hordes, and then we'll see where guard need to be priced at.

While I agree with your outlook on the game, even in a game with tons of anti-infantry options the problem is that even among other good, similarly costed infantry, Guard stands above the rest. Neophyte Hybrids, 5pts. Hormagants, 5 pts, etc. This would be a much fairer level for Guardsmen too, they are not 4pt infantry in the context of this game.

Asmodios wrote:

No, every army has an option but not a clone that can fill in.
If guard had a knight they wouldn't need to soup it in
If guard had jet bike captains they wouldn't need to soup it in
Yes, chess is popular but I assume there is a reason we are all on a WH board discussing WH and not chess. I could buy WH figures and play chess with them.... The fact is that's not what I'm looking for. I don't want the only thing differentiating my IG army from my brothers thousand suns to be the physical models and paint.

Who said anything about clones? Baneblades do the same/similar thing as Knights so to me their roles are equivalent. So long as each faction has a rough equivalent for something then I don't consider them to have any more strengths or weaknesses than another. Individual units should have weaknesses but factions as a whole should be able to cover their weak spots if the player plans around it. Tau are skewed to shooting but they do have close combat options if the player chooses to use them. In fact they were designed in such a way that Kroot would be almost necessary to offset their weakness in melee so that the faction as a whole didn't have a weakness, but each unit did.

 Peregrine wrote:

If those "thematic differences" don't translate into strengths and weaknesses then they are only aesthetic differences. Sure, you can have a given amount of anti-tank firepower represented by single models on 25mm bases or heavy weapon teams on 60mm bases but if both are equally effective then it's no different from painting your Ultramarines yellow and calling them a whole new faction. Having meaningful gameplay differences requires variation, and if you don't want to have one faction be straight better than the other (you don't) then you need to have different strengths and weaknesses. The 25mm heavy weapons have meatshields in the squad and therefore better durability, the 60mm heavy weapons have more point efficiency on offense because they lack meatshields but lose firepower faster if attacked. Etc. Same thing at the faction level. 8th edition's over-homogenization and soup rules have damaged the concept, but each faction does have an identity in terms of strengths and weaknesses:

Space marines have no weaknesses but aren't top-tier at anything either. Their versatile elite infantry will always be better than the opponent's weakest point and able to attack there, but will always be weaker than the opponent's strongest point and vulnerable to attack. But neither of these differences will be by as large a margin as you might find with other comparisons. Winning depends on tactical flexibility and being able to use the same unit in different roles depending on the opponent.

Eldar are the opposite. Their specialists are each top-tier in their specific role, but weak at any other role. They will always have the best option for attacking each point in an opposing army, but if they are out-played and their specialists have to go up against the wrong target they get wiped off the table. Winning depends on superior execution of the Eldar plan, getting the specialists to their correct targets and staying one step ahead of the enemy to keep their massive weak points away from danger.

Imperial Guard are great as a defensive gunline but have poor force projection. A layered defensive force of heavy armor screened by cheap and super-efficient infantry is very hard to break, but their options for pushing up the table and claiming objectives are much more limited and mostly glass cannons that struggle to hold an objective for multiple turns. Winning depends on balancing point allocations between locking down the "home" objectives and contesting the rest of the table, and identifying the correct timing to send the storm troopers/rough riders/etc into battle for their one shot at victory.

Tau have great mid-range mobile shooting but limited long-range firepower and nonexistent melee ability. Anything getting into melee with them wins and their ability to make an IG-style gunline is limited to a handful of railguns, but JSJ and fast tanks let them stay mobile without sacrificing firepower. Winning depends on managing the delicate balance between getting close enough to deliver effective offense and staying away from charges.

Orks are great at overwhelming the enemy in a horde of bodies but helpless at long range. They won't do much in the opening besides move forward, but once they get into combat sheer weight of numbers will beat almost anything. Winning depends on coordinating the attack, making sure that the whole green tide makes its charges simultaneously without getting too many models lost as casualties or stalled outside threat range.

Etc.

See how each army has a plan for winning, but also has a vulnerability that can be attacked? And each of those pairings is meaningfully different from the others? That's how you make interesting faction diversity.

From what I see, you have presented the stereotypical attributes of each faction but each weakness you mention is generally covered by each army:

- Marines weakness as you say is being jack-of-all-trades but master-of-none. That's not really a weakness per se and I feel that Marines do specialize (ASM v Devastators). Sure they're worse than other options (reapers) but from what I can tell people aren't too happy about that.

- Eldar do specialize, and that's what each aspect is for, but they also have generalized options (guardians/avengers anyone?) Then there's Wraithguard which play a super heavy infantry role and also seem pretty versatile to me. Their vehicles are also just tough/versatile in general and I feel like that was intended. Are windriders any more specialized than Marine bikers? (genuine question here)

- You say the Guard weakness is lack of projection, but Scions are very capable of that. Even just using Valkyries to bolster a gunline can have the same effect.

- Tau's weakness is melee generally, but Kroot exist to fill that gap which means the overall faction doesn't have that weakness, just the individual units.

- Ork shooting is worse than it deserves to be. Most of the Ork index is dedicated to ranged units. Mek guns and big gunz exist to fill the long range gap. Besides, Orks hunkering down and just firing is already established in their fluff (bad moonz/freebootaz)

As you can see each of these factions have the units to cover their supposed weaknesses (except maybe marines cuz their weakness is just being good instead of great). A player can build their army against the stereotypical build and still have a functioning army. Maybe not the best army but that's more to do with wonky balance than anything else.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Being an ork player, I recognize that guard infantry have very similar statistical outcome with some edge cases. Similar defense (44% IG vs 42% Ork chance to be kill against bolters, with orks being better vs 6/7 str and ig better at str 8 and higher), similar ranged output (16.6r% to wound vs t4 for lasguns and shootas, with the shoota having more shots 13"-18", lasgun at 19"-24".

But Orks have +1S and A, native charge reroll, the ability to get more attacks, and one of the best morale boosting rules in the game.

I simply don't believe that's all worth one point.

And the biggest problem with your math? you forgot that you get 3 guardsmen for every 2 orkz.

Basics, 3 guardsmen get 3 shots from 19-24 inches while the Orkz get zero. From 13-18 the Orkz get 4 shots to the guardsmens 3. And from 1-12 the guard get 6 shots to the orkz 4. So in a 24 inch range, orkz do better for 6 inches compared to the guards 18 inches. Ranged wise its heavily in favor of the guard. They also get heavy weapons worth taking and specialist weapons worth taking. Orkz get big shootas and Rokkitz, all of which are useless and over priced. Add to that the fact that the Guard will always have an officer nearby and then you factor in the orders bonus and yeah, shooting goes to Guard. IN CC Orkz are superior, not even going to debate that.

And again, durability wise, it goes to Guard hands down. Yes T4 is better then T3 and that is basically cancelled out by 5+ being better then 6+ but guard have the added bonus of being able to camp in cover and use longer ranged weapons to be useful where as the orkz need to be advancing every turn to get full use out of their CC abilities. So realistically you are seeing Guard with 4+ saves not 5+.

To summarize, Orkz are better overall due to T, S and # of attacks, but since most of their benefits are CC oriented they aren't as powerful as they appear. Guard are significantly better at ranged combat and are better at camping objectives and utilizing that advantage. Overall I think they are 1 point apart, not 2. I would not lower the cost of Ork boyz though because I am sick and tired of cheap boyz hordes, but yeah i could see guard going to 5ppm.

Assuming the best case for the guard (on objective, in cover, everyone's in range and LoS), then yes they have an advantage. Key words there is "best case". With all that, at 12 inch the 30 imperial guards unleash fire down range at the advancing orks, killing 8 boyz! None flee with morale because, realisticly, there's another mob nearby for Mob Rule. the 12 boyz shoot back for 3 dead guardsmen, they charge and cut down 8. Guardsmen only drag down 2 orks, and min 5 flee from combat. And this is with IG advantage, compare 30 choppa boyz vs 45 guard out in the open.

You keep marginalizing melee, but since that's how orks do the most damage it can't be ignored

 SHUPPET wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Yes, only allies placed, and this is how the tournament scene looks, because why would you not take allies? Of those allied armies, Guard primarys were head and shoulders above the rest. This is what people are trying to change with the nerf. If you are asking for nerfs to allies, I already said I agree with that. The problem is, that nerfs every other IoM the hardest and again leaves Guard by far the strongest solo army, as the primaries, and common sense will prove.

Asmodios wrote:


Also, way to selectively cut out my part of the post where i mentioned knights. You have continued to do this regardless of how many time I mention not just the knights but also the issue being soup in general.

I can't respond to every single statement you made since I went to sleep last night, because it would be a 3 page wall, and mostly of stuff that I have already addressed and that others have addressed after me, such as Knights, who as I said, I also think are too much right now.

This thread is about IG, hence why I'm not letting you play misdirection tactics like this.

1. Its not replying to everything i post its selectively quoting them and trying to use it as a strawman to discredit the main point of my post.
2. "why would you not take allies" This quote of yours is the underlining issue. There is zero reason to not take allies. There needs to be a drawback to mixing armies or you will never be able to correctly balance the game. The fact that including soup is a "no-brainer" is evidence that it needs to be changed.

>complains about selectively quoting
>next line, selectively quotes a fragment of my sentence and inaccurately condenses my entire argument down to that.


The problem isn't just allies, at all. There's problems definitely with Guard as a standalone faction too. If you remove allies from the game, Guardsmen are still stupidly costed infantry an incredibly powerful army. This my argument. Stop trying to rewrite what I'm saying and then throwing out accusations of Strawman fallacies. You're really bad at this.

I've seen well rationalised arguments as to why, or why not, Guardsmen should be 5pts, from people not letting bias cloud their judgement. You are not one of them. Every single post from you (and a couple of select others) screams faction-bias all through it, the transitional logic jumps you leap through don't even make sense half the time, you just repeat it ad nauseam, and then when people get tired of disproving the same point over and over you accuse them of fallacies that I don't think you even understand the definition of, for not responding with a spreadsheet of points that could basically be copy pasted from past responses already disproving what you've said.

Just give it a rest.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
**skims first 2 pages. No mention of flamers or anti horde**
**ctrlf+f 'flamer' on page 3 and 4. No results**

Guys I hate to just drop in 4 pages into a good old forum argument, but the problem is that guardsmen are a cheap horde infantry unit, and there are currently no hard counters to cheap horde infantry. I see people mentioning that there's no points efficient way to counter them, but there's not enough talk about WHY.

The reason why is that small arms got gutted in 8th by the AP changes. Most small arms (bolters, shuriken weapons, etc) went from ignoring guard armor to not. So cheap small arms are no longer efficient anti horde weapons. And then the blast and template changes made those weapons far weaker vs multi model units too. Flamers could reliably get ~5+ hits on hordes in the past, even if they were spread out (and much more if forced together). Now they get 1d6 and cost a huge amount. Small blasts like frag missiles got usually got 3 or 4 hits, or 6+ on clumped up guys. And both those weapons used to ignore guard armor, and now they do not even ignore ork armor! And FNP is all over the place.

Remember in 5th when a tac squad could have a flamer and missile launcher nearly for free and reliably overkilled guard squads even in cover in a single round?

Morale changes have also destroyed anti horde abilities. It used to be that you could charge guardsmen with tactical marines, kill a couple, and then finish them with a sweeping advance. Now that is gone. And the new moral system isn't an adequate replacement.

I'm not saying guardsmen should stay 4 points. I'm saying that guardsmen themselves aren't the issue. We need anti-horde to get fixed, which means a fix to small arms for certain armies, and a fix to blasts and templates for everyone. Get us back to having hard counters to hordes, and then we'll see where guard need to be priced at.

While I agree with your outlook on the game, even in a game with tons of anti-infantry options the problem is that even among other good, similarly costed infantry, Guard stands above the rest. Neophyte Hybrids, 5pts. Hormagants, 5 pts, etc. This would be a much fairer level for Guardsmen too, they are not 4pt infantry in the context of this game.

Nice straw man again. I quoted a specific part of your post to address it.... not selectively leaving out quotes and stating you never talked about something. The gymnastics you go through to keep from talking about actual points I make is staggering.

You also continually state as a fact that there are issues with guard as a stand alone faction but present 0 evidence for this claim over and over. You have admitted that no pure guard even placed at this event and do you know why that is? It’s because guard as a stand alone faction doesn’t have a problem actually it’s not even considered good enough to bring to the BAO.... you are required to soup in another faction.

Here is some fun statistics I went and looked up for you
Most common Primary Factions:
Imperial Knights: 14
T’au: 13
Astra Militarum: 11
Asuryani: 11
Tyranids: 10
Most common Secondary Detachments:
Astra militarum: 40
T’au: 20
Asuryani: 19
Drukhari: 15
Tyranids: 12
Most points earned per round:
Adeptus Sororitas: 27.34
Dark Angels: 26.50
Imperial Knights: 24.12
Renegade Knights: 24
Ynnari: 23.85
Highest win percentage:
Renegade Knights: 75%
Dark Angels: 75:
Genestealer Cults: 58.33%
Drukhari: 55.32%
Imperial Knights: 55.28%
T’au: 55.07%

Guard (and this is including with soup that raises their power level substantially) doesn’t even make the highest win percentage or points earned per turn list. Meaning that on average you will win a higher amount of games running you primary faction as not guard at the BAO. So once again where is the evidence that pure guard is an issue now? I’d love to read the data simply present it

@ Luke_Prowler
Let's just see then: 30 slugga boyz vs 45 Guard in the open:

Both sides start 25" away.

Orks go first. Advancing 11" puts them at 14". No shots.

Guard back up 6" and fire:
42 shots (assuming sergeants):
- 6 kills

Orks advance 11" puts them at 9", no shots, no charge.

Guard move up to rapid fire range, and we'll say only 30 men are in 12".
71 shots:
- 10 kills
Guard charge with 2 squads,
Orks fire overwatch:
- 1 kill
Guard fight
- 3 kills
Orks fight back:
- 9* kills, one squad dead.

Orks shoot:
- 2 kills
Orks fight:
- 8* kills, squad dead.

Guard are all in rapid fire, shoot:
- 7 kills
Guard charge with 2 squads
Orks overwatch:
- no kill
Guard fight
- 3 kills
Orks fight
- 1 kill

Orks shoot:
- no kill
Orks fight:
- 1 kill
Guard fights
- 1 kill

Total: Guard wins with 23 models left.
*Actually did more wounds but could only allocate to that squad.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
**skims first 2 pages. No mention of flamers or anti horde**
**ctrlf+f 'flamer' on page 3 and 4. No results**

Guys I hate to just drop in 4 pages into a good old forum argument, but the problem is that guardsmen are a cheap horde infantry unit, and there are currently no hard counters to cheap horde infantry. I see people mentioning that there's no points efficient way to counter them, but there's not enough talk about WHY.

The reason why is that small arms got gutted in 8th by the AP changes. Most small arms (bolters, shuriken weapons, etc) went from ignoring guard armor to not. So cheap small arms are no longer efficient anti horde weapons. And then the blast and template changes made those weapons far weaker vs multi model units too. Flamers could reliably get ~5+ hits on hordes in the past, even if they were spread out (and much more if forced together). Now they get 1d6 and cost a huge amount. Small blasts like frag missiles got usually got 3 or 4 hits, or 6+ on clumped up guys. And both those weapons used to ignore guard armor, and now they do not even ignore ork armor! And FNP is all over the place.

Remember in 5th when a tac squad could have a flamer and missile launcher nearly for free and reliably overkilled guard squads even in cover in a single round?

Morale changes have also destroyed anti horde abilities. It used to be that you could charge guardsmen with tactical marines, kill a couple, and then finish them with a sweeping advance. Now that is gone. And the new moral system isn't an adequate replacement.

I'm not saying guardsmen should stay 4 points. I'm saying that guardsmen themselves aren't the issue. We need anti-horde to get fixed, which means a fix to small arms for certain armies, and a fix to blasts and templates for everyone. Get us back to having hard counters to hordes, and then we'll see where guard need to be priced at.

Yeah, all flamers should really be "roll 2d6 and pick the highest" for amount of hits and they should ignore cover. A space marine successfully hitting 1 out of the 40 cultists 5 meters in front of him is just sad.

I would definitely think, for the current price, that flamer weapons could use those rules and still not even be used that much haha. But I dig that proposal.

What anti horde weapons


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
A lot of people are for 5pt guardsmen, including guard players. However, as is expected, there are many who think 4pt guard is fine.
Kanluwen should be along shortly to tell you why 5pt guard is bad.

I was in the 5ppm camp until the commissars lost their seriously crazy ld abilities. Nowadays with the amount of anti horde weapons out there 4ppm doesn't seem as ridiculous as it did. Used to be we had the best morale in the game. Nowadays we're actually vulnerable to leadership shock again and more tricks are being used to actually remove or get around the screens guardsmen provide. Captain smash is a great example, guardsmen screens are almost entirely incapable of stopping him.

The big issue is that guardsmen can be allied to half the armies in the game and you'd be stupid not to for the cp they provide. Allies drastically need to be reworked because as it sits you could make guardsmen 6ppm and they would still be abused by soup lists for the regenerating cp and being the cheapest decent troop tax around.

Ironically guardsmen are an issue in almost every list except a pure IG army. Make it where knights, space marines, and other imperium armies can't use us as a crutch/cheaper troop tax and guardsmen would be fine where they are. You don't do that by upping their price, but by reworking how ally detachments work so 3 squads of infantry and a couple officers aren't leading your whole army and providing half it's command points. Locking CP to the detachment or <keyword> that generates it is the only way you're going to end that. If you try to fix it with a points change to guardsmen all you'll do is Nerf IG's most iconic unit and the tournament crowd will just sub in scions, nothing serious will change.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
**skims first 2 pages. No mention of flamers or anti horde**
**ctrlf+f 'flamer' on page 3 and 4. No results**

Guys I hate to just drop in 4 pages into a good old forum argument, but the problem is that guardsmen are a cheap horde infantry unit, and there are currently no hard counters to cheap horde infantry. I see people mentioning that there's no points efficient way to counter them, but there's not enough talk about WHY.

The reason why is that small arms got gutted in 8th by the AP changes. Most small arms (bolters, shuriken weapons, etc) went from ignoring guard armor to not. So cheap small arms are no longer efficient anti horde weapons. And then the blast and template changes made those weapons far weaker vs multi model units too. Flamers could reliably get ~5+ hits on hordes in the past, even if they were spread out (and much more if forced together). Now they get 1d6 and cost a huge amount. Small blasts like frag missiles got usually got 3 or 4 hits, or 6+ on clumped up guys. And both those weapons used to ignore guard armor, and now they do not even ignore ork armor! And FNP is all over the place.

Remember in 5th when a tac squad could have a flamer and missile launcher nearly for free and reliably overkilled guard squads even in cover in a single round?

Morale changes have also destroyed anti horde abilities. It used to be that you could charge guardsmen with tactical marines, kill a couple, and then finish them with a sweeping advance. Now that is gone. And the new moral system isn't an adequate replacement.

I'm not saying guardsmen should stay 4 points. I'm saying that guardsmen themselves aren't the issue. We need anti-horde to get fixed, which means a fix to small arms for certain armies, and a fix to blasts and templates for everyone. Get us back to having hard counters to hordes, and then we'll see where guard need to be priced at.

The game is full of anti horde weapons.

Lasguns, bolters (and variations), devourers... Pretty much every S3 or S4 weapon without AP is an anti horde weapon, since it is drastically more efficient at killing small models than elite models.

Sure, if you use a tactical marine vs guardman for your math, then you get skewed results, but you just took a totally uncompetitive choice vs an high competitive one specialized in durability (and without looking at morale). If you take a more realistic and less biased approach, you can see that shooting a bolter at an intercessor will yeld you 1/3 of the points in damage compared to shooting an ork boy.

The whole concept going around that "8th has no anti horde weapons" is completely false. If you increase the amount of anti horde weapons going around, you kill many units like hormagaunts that right now are perfectly balanced.

If you can't table 200 boyz with a TAC list, that's like saying that you can't table a knight list with a typical TAC list. Skewed lists tend to do that. I assure you that if you invested in light weaponry the same amount of points that right now we invest in heavy weapons in case we meet knights, then those 200 Orks would be no problem.

Let's stop derailing threads with this wrong assumption that the game lacks anti horde, it is simply false.

If there are problems (and i'm not sure there is one), then they are to be found within individual models.

PiñaColada wrote:

Yeah, all flamers should really be "roll 2d6 and pick the highest" for amount of hits and they should ignore cover. A space marine successfully hitting 1 out of the 40 cultists 5 meters in front of him is just sad.

Flamers should be '2d6 autohits, cannot cause more hits than there are models in the target unit.'

The game lacks anti horde compared to previous editions, may be a more accurate statement. Weapons that that do more damage based on the number of models in a unit (ie, template weapons) are gone (which is fine) and nothing replaced them effectively (which I think is a problem). For a gun to be anti horde in 8th, it must simply have as many shots as possible for as few points as possible. With a few exceptions (aggressors, deathwatch, etc), this now means that the only effective anti horde is another horde.

As for the durability issue, I'd argue that the only realistic way to compare durability is to look at a wider range of weapons that just a bolter or Las gun. Armored units are killed much more effectively than hordes once AP is involved. Multi wound have a major weakness in that they are vulnerable to multi damage weapons in ways horde units are not. Intercessors may be more durable than orks per point vs bolters, but most real armies will have some 2 damage shooting they can direct at the intercessors, and that isn't something you should leave out of the equation. Ideally I think we would come up with a mix of weapons a balanced enemy army is actually likely to shoot at a Target (x% bolters, x% plasma, x% heavy bolters, x% autocannons, x% Las cannons, etc), and calculculate the durability of units based on that. When you do that, you find that hordes are some of the most durable units in the game, because there isn't a set of weapons that do damage based on unit size, and the anti horde weapons end up being anti pretty much everything weapons. The reason you don't see Marines isn't because they are sightly less durable than guardsmen vs bolters, but because they evaporate vs heavy bolters, assault cannons, etc.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

Assuming the best case for the guard (on objective, in cover, everyone's in range and LoS), then yes they have an advantage. Key words there is "best case". With all that, at 12 inch the 30 imperial guards unleash fire down range at the advancing orks, killing 8 boyz! None flee with morale because, realisticly, there's another mob nearby for Mob Rule. the 12 boyz shoot back for 3 dead guardsmen, they charge and cut down 8. Guardsmen only drag down 2 orks, and min 5 flee from combat. And this is with IG advantage, compare 30 choppa boyz vs 45 guard out in the open.

You keep marginalizing melee, but since that's how orks do the most damage it can't be ignored

Best case is common case because at 40pts for a full squad why would you worry about them not doing anything? plant them in cover on the objective and force your opponent to come to you.

As for your scenario, funny how you started them at 12' instead of beyond range like they normally start out, If its 30 guard vs 20 orkz (120pts each) then at 24' the guard kill about 4-5 Boyz turn 1, orkz have to advance so they are hitting on 6s, average advance is 3.5 so 8-9in total, that puts them at 15-16' range. they shoot 32 shots(assuming 4 died turn 1) for 10-11 hits, 7 wounds, against a 4+ save = 3-4 dead IG. Guard walk forward into double tap range and the remaining 26 shoot 52 shots for 26 hits and 9 wounds for a grand total of another 8 dead Orkz. So now the ork horde is down to 8 models, they just lost 8 so that means they lose D6 more models so another 3 (because we aren't adding in their being another mob nearby because if we do that then I add in orders to the squads and then it really goes one way). So now those orkz are down to 4-5 boyz left, they walk forward and get within 7' range of the IG and shoot 10 shots, 3 hits, 2 wounds and 1 more dead guard. then they charge, the remaining 25 guard let lose with 50 shots for about 8 hits and 2-3 wounds for another 2-3 dead Orkz. the remaining boyz get into combat and dish out a grand total of 6 attacks, 4 hits and 3 wounds for 1.5 dead guard, the guard then swing back and annihilate the Boyz. Game over.

Again though, I am not saying boyz need a buff, they are fine where they are. Hopefully we get some Klan Tactics worth a damn and I will be happy. But to sit there and say Ork boyz compared to IG is about even point for point is just inherently wrong. All the numbers add up and point to the fact that IG are too cheap. At 5ppm they would be fine.

Comparing orks and guardsmen is pointless because there serve very different purposes in their sperate factions. Comparing them in a vacuum is also foolish. Orks can teleport, reroll charges, advance and charge, etc. Guard have orders, etc. These things can't really be accounted for in a vacuum comparison. It's perfectly possible for two units to be exactly the same, but one is better because of the faction it's in, and need to cost more.

jcd386 wrote:

Comparing orks and guardsmen is pointless because there serve very different purposes in their sperate factions.

But do they really? What is the purpose of Guardsmen? And what is the purpose of Boyz?
- Hold objectives?
- Clear out enemy infantry?
- Bog down vehicles?
- Screen your own vehicles?
Both are equally durable to each other, and shoota boyz even have similar shot output to guardsmen.

It's perfectly possible for two units to be exactly the same, but one is better because of the faction it's in, and need to cost more.

Respectfully disagree. Units should cost exactly what they are worth before outside buffs are considered because buffs are generally inconsistent. And buffs usually require outside investment to function, so charge the player there.

Dandelion wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

Comparing orks and guardsmen is pointless because there serve very different purposes in their sperate factions.

But do they really? What is the purpose of Guardsmen? And what is the purpose of Boyz?
- Hold objectives?
- Clear out enemy infantry?
- Bog down vehicles?
- Screen your own vehicles?
Both are equally durable to each other, and shoota boyz even have similar shot output to guardsmen.

It's perfectly possible for two units to be exactly the same, but one is better because of the faction it's in, and need to cost more.

Respectfully disagree. Units should cost exactly what they are worth before outside buffs are considered because buffs are generally inconsistent. And buffs usually require outside investment to function, so charge the player there.

Unfortunately I think with things like chapter tactics, auras, and strategems, you have to balance things based on the ideal or at least the average combination rather than the individual parts in a vacuum.

What we frequently see in the game is that two units cost about the same but one is much better due to faction synergies, so the inverse wouldn't be much different.

As for the difference between those armies, Ork boys are actually expected to do some heavy lifting in Ork lists, and do real damage if they aren't stopped. Guardsmen are more about just existing, taking up space, and being annoying while the real damage dealers like tanks and artillery (or allies) continue to function. Guardsmen are chaff. If you could you would ignore them and kill something else, but they force you to focus on them by their positioning. You want to kill Ork boys because they are actually scary. Reducing the number of boys reduces the meaningful damage output of the enemy list. Killing guardsmen typically doesn't to the same extent. This makes the guardsmen more valuable IMO.

jcd386 wrote:

Unfortunately I think with things like chapter tactics, auras, and strategems, you have to balance things based on the ideal or at least the average combination rather than the individual parts in a vacuum.

What we frequently see in the game is that two units cost about the same but one is much better due to faction synergies, so the inverse wouldn't be much different.

As for the difference between those armies, Ork boys are actually expected to do some heavy lifting in Ork lists, and do real damage if they aren't stopped. Guardsmen are more about just existing, taking up space, and being annoying while the real damage dealers like tanks and artillery (or allies) continue to function. Guardsmen are chaff. If you could you would ignore them and kill something else, but they force you to focus on them by their positioning. You want to kill Ork boys because they are actually scary. Reducing the number of boys reduces the meaningful damage output of the enemy list. Killing guardsmen typically doesn't to the same extent. This makes the guardsmen more valuable IMO.

It all depends on how you use them. If you treat them as chaff that's all they will be, but if you use them aggressively you'll find that they hurt... a lot. Most people I see are running 60-80 guardsmen, which really isn't enough. To put that into perspective that's about 240-320 points, that's the equivalent of 1 maybe 2 tanks/vehicles. That's peanuts for what you're getting. Plop down 120-200 Steel Legion Guardsmen and you'll be terrified of the humble lasgun. Also, Guard special weapons are cheap. Plasma, heavy botlers, lascannons etc... can all hide within bigger squads.

Dandelion wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

Comparing orks and guardsmen is pointless because there serve very different purposes in their sperate factions.

But do they really? What is the purpose of Guardsmen? And what is the purpose of Boyz?
- Hold objectives?
- Clear out enemy infantry?
- Bog down vehicles?
- Screen your own vehicles?
Both are equally durable to each other, and shoota boyz even have similar shot output to guardsmen.

It's perfectly possible for two units to be exactly the same, but one is better because of the faction it's in, and need to cost more.

Respectfully disagree. Units should cost exactly what they are worth before outside buffs are considered because buffs are generally inconsistent. And buffs usually require outside investment to function, so charge the player there.

But static point costs aren't a very good representative power of a unit. one unit of ten reapers is not the same in power as 3xten sized units of reapers. IMO GW should just make premade armies and balance them against each other. Otherwise you get stuff like razorbacks going up in points, because they are too good for normal marines with all the re-rolls, only the GK players did not have access to those re-rolls.

Serious question - are any armies winning tournaments with hordes of IG infantry?

And by 'hordes' I mean actual massed infantry, not 'just enough Infantry Squads to make up a minimum Battalion'.

My point is, I don't think the price of IG infantry is the issue. The issues are:
1) Soup has basically no cost. There's no meaningful benefit to using a pure army, nor any downside to mixing factions. Hence, you get to cover downsides basically for free.
2) CPs are universal. If you have a few IG detachments generating a ton of CPs, then those CPs should be limited to those IG detachments. As it stands, you can use a relatively small number of guardsmen (in terms of points) to generate a huge amount of CPs for the rest of your army.

If you're desperate to fix actual units (rather than the godawful ally rules), then perhaps it would make more sense to focus on the units in these soup lists that are doing the actual damage?

Dandelion wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

Comparing orks and guardsmen is pointless because there serve very different purposes in their sperate factions.

But do they really? What is the purpose of Guardsmen? And what is the purpose of Boyz?
- Hold objectives?
- Clear out enemy infantry?
- Bog down vehicles?
- Screen your own vehicles?
Both are equally durable to each other, and shoota boyz even have similar shot output to guardsmen.

It's perfectly possible for two units to be exactly the same, but one is better because of the faction it's in, and need to cost more.

Respectfully disagree. Units should cost exactly what they are worth before outside buffs are considered because buffs are generally inconsistent. And buffs usually require outside investment to function, so charge the player there.

No. That’s poor design that leads to homogenized factions that may as well just be different “skins” of each other.

Assymetrical games charge you extra for being able to do something outside your focus. Magic for example DOES have things like green direct damage spells, red card draw, blue fat creatures etc. They typically suffer higher than normal cost or other significant downsides that would make them very bad cards in the color(s) they are emulating, but the ability to cover a weakness without crossing colors is what you’re paying extra (or getting less) for.

 vipoid wrote:
Serious question - are any armies winning tournaments with hordes of IG infantry?

And by 'hordes' I mean actual massed infantry, not 'just enough Infantry Squads to make up a minimum Battalion'.

My point is, I don't think the price of IG infantry is the issue. The issues are:
1) Soup has basically no cost. There's no meaningful benefit to using a pure army, nor any downside to mixing factions. Hence, you get to cover downsides basically for free.
2) CPs are universal. If you have a few IG detachments generating a ton of CPs, then those CPs should be limited to those IG detachments. As it stands, you can use a relatively small number of guardsmen (in terms of points) to generate a huge amount of CPs for the rest of your army.

If you're desperate to fix actual units (rather than the godawful ally rules), then perhaps it would make more sense to focus on the units in these soup lists that are doing the actual damage?

To be fair, a naked Guardsman is there less to deal damage, than to soak it. Any shots fired into the screen, or any melee units that need to waste a turn mulching through them, is another turn the big guns are firing. Plus, an Infantry Squad can be fairly flexible since you can hide a heavy weapon in it, or a special weapon (or both) - the cost of each squad goes up, but having a Lascannon that (before factoring morale) has 10 wounds for 60 points is nothing to scoff at.


I had a bit of a shower thought from the comments in this thread on soup, that got me thinking slightly. Would something along the lines of "troops costing 10 points or more per model generate 1cp per unit taken" work as a slap dash fix? Suddenly Tactical Marines and the like would have a much bigger use, as taking those three troop slots of them would give the player 3 more CP and some tactical flexibility. Meanwhile, Guardsmen, Orks, Skitarii, etc with cheaper troops would not generate these bonuses. Very obviously, this would need to be fine tuned, clarified, etc, but it would give more elite armies more CP options than "add a Guard CP battery".

Karol wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

Comparing orks and guardsmen is pointless because there serve very different purposes in their sperate factions.

But do they really? What is the purpose of Guardsmen? And what is the purpose of Boyz?
- Hold objectives?
- Clear out enemy infantry?
- Bog down vehicles?
- Screen your own vehicles?
Both are equally durable to each other, and shoota boyz even have similar shot output to guardsmen.

It's perfectly possible for two units to be exactly the same, but one is better because of the faction it's in, and need to cost more.

Respectfully disagree. Units should cost exactly what they are worth before outside buffs are considered because buffs are generally inconsistent. And buffs usually require outside investment to function, so charge the player there.

But static point costs aren't a very good representative power of a unit. one unit of ten reapers is not the same in power as 3xten sized units of reapers. IMO GW should just make premade armies and balance them against each other. Otherwise you get stuff like razorbacks going up in points, because they are too good for normal marines with all the re-rolls, only the GK players did not have access to those re-rolls.

I don't know what you're getting at. If buffs weren't taken into consideration on a unit by unit basis than razorbacks would not have gone up in price due to regular marines. The cost of a buff is better paid in the unit that gives the buff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 niv-mizzet wrote:

No. That’s poor design that leads to homogenized factions that may as well just be different “skins” of each other.

Assymetrical games charge you extra for being able to do something outside your focus. Magic for example DOES have things like green direct damage spells, red card draw, blue fat creatures etc. They typically suffer higher than normal cost or other significant downsides that would make them very bad cards in the color(s) they are emulating, but the ability to cover a weakness without crossing colors is what you’re paying extra (or getting less) for.

Please explain how costing units based on their baseline performance homogenizes them. Points represent in-game performance full stop. If they don't then they are a currency which edges armies into skew lists.

As for the Magic example, 40k doesn't have a faction "focus" or whatever that is. Do Tau pay extra for the luxury of running Kroot?

 vipoid wrote:
Serious question - are any armies winning tournaments with hordes of IG infantry?

And by 'hordes' I mean actual massed infantry, not 'just enough Infantry Squads to make up a minimum Battalion'.

My point is, I don't think the price of IG infantry is the issue. The issues are:
1) Soup has basically no cost. There's no meaningful benefit to using a pure army, nor any downside to mixing factions. Hence, you get to cover downsides basically for free.
2) CPs are universal. If you have a few IG detachments generating a ton of CPs, then those CPs should be limited to those IG detachments. As it stands, you can use a relatively small number of guardsmen (in terms of points) to generate a huge amount of CPs for the rest of your army.

If you're desperate to fix actual units (rather than the godawful ally rules), then perhaps it would make more sense to focus on the units in these soup lists that are doing the actual damage?

To answer your question: Yes, they are. Guard had 3 top 10 placings at BAO last weekend as a Primary faction (more than any other race) and all 3 took a large amount of infantry, the upper two both maxing out on Guardsmen. Then, on top of that they had 3 MORE placings as the CP battalion that you describe, but that's a separate issue. Over the course of the month as a whole, they have more top 3 placings than any other army, every single list to place being a Catachan infantry based build, and that's one again, excluding CP batteries.

At five points per guardsman the Imperial Guard will not be transformed into a bottom tier army. They just won't. They won't necessarily be top tier anymore...so be it.

This will instantly nerf two of the biggest problems in the game: namely overpowered Imperial Guard and overpowered Imperial Soup.

Yes, it leaves Eldar (of all stripes) that desperately need a similar treatment.

I can't understand why people don't want to make the game better.

The most interesting thing I've seen recently on this is the relative point values GW assigned to these 'core' troops units in Kill Team. Is it the same ruleset? No, but still very similar with generally the same rules:
Seems in this limited selection of units, the Guardman is near the bottom with only Cultist and Gretchin coming in lower for obvious reasons. Others have been adjusted around, so its might not be just Guardsman that are in need of a points adjustment to level the playing field.

 alextroy wrote:
The most interesting thing I've seen recently on this is the relative point values GW assigned to these 'core' troops units in Kill Team. Is it the same ruleset? No, but still very similar with generally the same rules:

Spoiler:

Space Marine Scout 10 (11 with Camo Cloak)
Space Marine Tactical Marine 12

Astra Militarum Infantry Guardsman 5

Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii Ranger/Vanguard 9

Chaos Space Marine 12
Chaos Space Marine Cultist 4

Death Guard Plague Marines 14
Death Guard Pox Walkers 3

Thousand Sons Rubric Marines 16
Thousand Sons Tzaangors 7
Asuryani Guardian Defender 7
Asuryani Storm Guardian 6
Asuryani Ranger 11
Asuryani Dire Avenger 10

Drukari Kabalite Warrior 7
Drukari Wych 8

Necron Warrior 12
Necron Immortal 16

Ork Boy 6
Ork Gretchin 3

Tau Fire Warrior 8
Tau Breacher 8

Tyranid Termagant 4
Tyranid Hormagaunt 4
Tyranid Warrior 20
Tyranid Genestealer 11

Genestealer Cults Neophyte Hybrid 5

Seems in this limited selection of units, the Guardman is near the bottom with only Cultist and Gretchin coming in lower for obvious reasons. Others have been adjusted around, so its might not be just Guardsman that are in need of a points adjustment to level the playing field.

Are Drukari missing power from pain or something else to explain why they're getting what at first glance feel like undercosted units?

Drukhari are largely undercosted, just like IG.

Spoletta wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
**skims first 2 pages. No mention of flamers or anti horde**
**ctrlf+f 'flamer' on page 3 and 4. No results**

Guys I hate to just drop in 4 pages into a good old forum argument, but the problem is that guardsmen are a cheap horde infantry unit, and there are currently no hard counters to cheap horde infantry. I see people mentioning that there's no points efficient way to counter them, but there's not enough talk about WHY.

The reason why is that small arms got gutted in 8th by the AP changes. Most small arms (bolters, shuriken weapons, etc) went from ignoring guard armor to not. So cheap small arms are no longer efficient anti horde weapons. And then the blast and template changes made those weapons far weaker vs multi model units too. Flamers could reliably get ~5+ hits on hordes in the past, even if they were spread out (and much more if forced together). Now they get 1d6 and cost a huge amount. Small blasts like frag missiles got usually got 3 or 4 hits, or 6+ on clumped up guys. And both those weapons used to ignore guard armor, and now they do not even ignore ork armor! And FNP is all over the place.

Remember in 5th when a tac squad could have a flamer and missile launcher nearly for free and reliably overkilled guard squads even in cover in a single round?

Morale changes have also destroyed anti horde abilities. It used to be that you could charge guardsmen with tactical marines, kill a couple, and then finish them with a sweeping advance. Now that is gone. And the new moral system isn't an adequate replacement.

I'm not saying guardsmen should stay 4 points. I'm saying that guardsmen themselves aren't the issue. We need anti-horde to get fixed, which means a fix to small arms for certain armies, and a fix to blasts and templates for everyone. Get us back to having hard counters to hordes, and then we'll see where guard need to be priced at.

The game is full of anti horde weapons.

Lasguns, bolters (and variations), devourers... Pretty much every S3 or S4 weapon without AP is an anti horde weapon, since it is drastically more efficient at killing small models than elite models.

Sure, if you use a tactical marine vs guardman for your math, then you get skewed results, but you just took a totally uncompetitive choice vs an high competitive one specialized in durability (and without looking at morale). If you take a more realistic and less biased approach, you can see that shooting a bolter at an intercessor will yeld you 1/3 of the points in damage compared to shooting an ork boy.

The whole concept going around that "8th has no anti horde weapons" is completely false. If you increase the amount of anti horde weapons going around, you kill many units like hormagaunts that right now are perfectly balanced.

If you can't table 200 boyz with a TAC list, that's like saying that you can't table a knight list with a typical TAC list. Skewed lists tend to do that. I assure you that if you invested in light weaponry the same amount of points that right now we invest in heavy weapons in case we meet knights, then those 200 Orks would be no problem.

Let's stop derailing threads with this wrong assumption that the game lacks anti horde, it is simply false.

If there are problems (and i'm not sure there is one), then they are to be found within individual models.

Lol, wut? Just because these weapons can only really hurt hordes doesn't mean they are good vs hordes. Considering the weapons in a vacuum without taking into account the units that can take them is asinine. They still aren't point efficient vs horde units. Nothing is except other horde units. That is the best. It's not just a matter of not using the correct unit to counter them. Units that used to counter them no longer do, even though they are still supposed to.

How can you not be sure there is a problem when a massive amount of units (including almost the entire SM faction and most MeQs) are not fielded due to lack of efficient ways to fight hordes?

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:


Lol, wut? Just because these weapons can only really hurt hordes doesn't mean they are good vs hordes. Considering the weapons in a vacuum without taking into account the units that can take them is asinine. They still aren't point efficient vs horde units. Nothing is except other horde units. That is the best. It's not just a matter of not using the correct unit to counter them. Units that used to counter them no longer do, even though they are still supposed to.

How can you not be sure there is a problem when a massive amount of units (including almost the entire SM faction and most MeQs) are not fielded due to lack of efficient ways to fight hordes?

Lets theorycraft.

Within the current design space of 8e, how would you create and define an 'anti-horde' weapon. This weapon has to be bad (or at least average) against non-hordes.

 Eonfuzz wrote:


Lets theorycraft.

Within the current design space of 8e, how would you create and define an 'anti-horde' weapon. This weapon has to be bad (or at least average) against non-hordes.

I said this on previous page: Flamers should be '2d6 autohits, cannot cause more hits than there are models in the target unit.' You could apply the same logic to some former blast weapons as well.

Anti-horde weapons could get 1 shot for every 10 models in a target unit, round up. Kind of a kludge but it would do the trick.

It's kind of funny that the punisher Gatling Cannon, Wyvern, and mortar HWSs are in the guard armory.

 Eonfuzz wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:


Lol, wut? Just because these weapons can only really hurt hordes doesn't mean they are good vs hordes. Considering the weapons in a vacuum without taking into account the units that can take them is asinine. They still aren't point efficient vs horde units. Nothing is except other horde units. That is the best. It's not just a matter of not using the correct unit to counter them. Units that used to counter them no longer do, even though they are still supposed to.

How can you not be sure there is a problem when a massive amount of units (including almost the entire SM faction and most MeQs) are not fielded due to lack of efficient ways to fight hordes?

Lets theorycraft.

Within the current design space of 8e, how would you create and define an 'anti-horde' weapon. This weapon has to be bad (or at least average) against non-hordes.

There's 2 possible definitions:

1) Weapons that get more hits, or are otherwise more effective vs larger units.
2) Weapons which are effective vs squishy models that tend to be in hordes, but which aren't strong enough to be efficient vs models with good saves, toughness, etc.

For number 2, it's definitely a matter of unit vs unit comparison. For example, in 5th ed, Tactical marines with bolters were an efficient way to kill guardsmen not just because of their offensive output, but because guardsmen were not efficient at killing MeQs at the time. Tactica's were pretty efficient at shooting boyz off the board, but weren't efficient at killing them in melee due to tacs being weaker there and boyz being stronger. So it is certainly a relative effect.

What is required is an abstract rule mechanic which adequately represents the fact that larger groups of massed infantry will clustered more closely together and will therefore be more susceptible to high RoF or explosive weapons when compared with smaller elite units.

In previous editions this was dealt with less abstractly with the use of templates but that allowed for gamey model placement shenanigans.

One idea would be to address this with key words. Let's say you have 'Shock Infantry' and 'Horde Infantry'. Regular infantry doesn't have a codeword and weapons affect it normally. Some weapons have a greater or lesser effect against Shock Infantry or Horde Infantry.

The shock / horde distinction would largely represent a tactical distinction. Horde infantry are units which rely primarily on strength of numbers whereas shock infantry are going to use mobility and cover to use the element of surprise.

bibotot wrote:
The complaint right now is how useless the Conscripts are compared to Guardsman. So how about bringing the Guardsmen to 5 points per model and give them some special rule? What in hell do Ork Boyz cost 6 pts per model? They should be overwhelming the Guards with sheer number, not the other way around.

Pffttt I never enlist conscripts, I play DKK, we have no time for newbees.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

Lol, wut? Just because these weapons can only really hurt hordes doesn't mean they are good vs hordes. Considering the weapons in a vacuum without taking into account the units that can take them is asinine. They still aren't point efficient vs horde units. Nothing is except other horde units. That is the best. It's not just a matter of not using the correct unit to counter them. Units that used to counter them no longer do, even though they are still supposed to.

How can you not be sure there is a problem when a massive amount of units (including almost the entire SM faction and most MeQs) are not fielded due to lack of efficient ways to fight hordes?

Spoletta is right in this regard. Anti-horde is achieved through high ROF, low strength, no AP guns. The ROF counters the hordes but low strength and AP keeps them from hurting vehicles and such with equal efficiency. It's true that the source of these is few and far between but they exist. Some examples include Aggressors, Taurox Prime, Skitarii Vanguard/Infiltrators etc...

Just as a theoretical exercise:
40 Boltguns hits vs Ork boyz and Marine Intercessors
- Boyz: 16.6 models lost = 100 pts lost
- Intercessors: 3.33 models lost = 60 points lost
Boltguns are about 66% more effective vs boyz than intercessors.

Compare to 40 plasma hits:
- Boyz: 26.66 models lost (33.33 overcharging) = 160 pts (200 pts)
- Intercessors: 11 models lost ( 27.7 overcharging) = 200 pts (500 pts)
Plasma is about 25% more efficient against Intercessors (or 150% overcharging RIP )

Other than plasma overcharge just being OP (GW pls nerf) I think it sufficiently illustrates how AP shifts the scale.

Dandelion wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

Lol, wut? Just because these weapons can only really hurt hordes doesn't mean they are good vs hordes. Considering the weapons in a vacuum without taking into account the units that can take them is asinine. They still aren't point efficient vs horde units. Nothing is except other horde units. That is the best. It's not just a matter of not using the correct unit to counter them. Units that used to counter them no longer do, even though they are still supposed to.

How can you not be sure there is a problem when a massive amount of units (including almost the entire SM faction and most MeQs) are not fielded due to lack of efficient ways to fight hordes?

Spoletta is right in this regard. Anti-horde is achieved through high ROF, low strength, no AP guns. The ROF counters the hordes but low strength and AP keeps them from hurting vehicles and such with equal efficiency. It's true that the source of these is few and far between but they exist. Some examples include Aggressors, Taurox Prime, Skitarii Vanguard/Infiltrators etc...

Just as a theoretical exercise:
40 Boltguns hits vs Ork boyz and Marine Intercessors
- Boyz: 16.6 models lost = 100 pts lost
- Intercessors: 3.33 models lost = 60 points lost
Boltguns are about 66% more effective vs boyz than intercessors.

Compare to 40 plasma hits:
- Boyz: 26.66 models lost (33.33 overcharging) = 160 pts (200 pts)
- Intercessors: 11 models lost ( 27.7 overcharging) = 200 pts (500 pts)
Plasma is about 25% more efficient against Intercessors (or 150% overcharging RIP )

Other than plasma overcharge just being OP (GW pls nerf) I think it sufficiently illustrates how AP shifts the scale.

Plasma overdrive isn't OP, potentially losing a model for shooting is big especially in a low model count army, and losing 2 wound models, plus you can't take saves anymore for them. I only use the OD when I really need to. Much better to safe bet it.

I think 3D3 would be better for Flamers. That's doing a minimum of 3 hits, and on average doing 6.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
They may need a minor points increase though

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:


Plasma overdrive isn't OP, potentially losing a model for shooting is big especially in a low model count army, and losing 2 wound models, plus you can't take saves anymore for them. I only use the OD when I really need to. Much better to safe bet it.

Reroll 1s FTW!
Granted I don't think plasma is that over the top, but it could stand to lose 1S on its profile (now overcharge only wounds T4 on 3s). And 2W models could get a smidgen cheaper just due to the prevalence of 2D weapons in general.

Ice_can wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
The most interesting thing I've seen recently on this is the relative point values GW assigned to these 'core' troops units in Kill Team. Is it the same ruleset? No, but still very similar with generally the same rules:

Spoiler:

Space Marine Scout 10 (11 with Camo Cloak)
Space Marine Tactical Marine 12

Astra Militarum Infantry Guardsman 5

Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii Ranger/Vanguard 9

Chaos Space Marine 12
Chaos Space Marine Cultist 4

Death Guard Plague Marines 14
Death Guard Pox Walkers 3

Thousand Sons Rubric Marines 16
Thousand Sons Tzaangors 7
Asuryani Guardian Defender 7
Asuryani Storm Guardian 6
Asuryani Ranger 11
Asuryani Dire Avenger 10

Drukari Kabalite Warrior 7
Drukari Wych 8

Necron Warrior 12
Necron Immortal 16

Ork Boy 6
Ork Gretchin 3

Tau Fire Warrior 8
Tau Breacher 8

Tyranid Termagant 4
Tyranid Hormagaunt 4
Tyranid Warrior 20
Tyranid Genestealer 11

Genestealer Cults Neophyte Hybrid 5

Seems in this limited selection of units, the Guardman is near the bottom with only Cultist and Gretchin coming in lower for obvious reasons. Others have been adjusted around, so its might not be just Guardsman that are in need of a points adjustment to level the playing field.

Are Drukari missing power from pain or something else to explain why they're getting what at first glance feel like undercosted units?

Nope. They have it in Kill Team also.

Dandelion wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:


Plasma overdrive isn't OP, potentially losing a model for shooting is big especially in a low model count army, and losing 2 wound models, plus you can't take saves anymore for them. I only use the OD when I really need to. Much better to safe bet it.

Reroll 1s FTW!
Granted I don't think plasma is that over the top, but it could stand to lose 1S on its profile (now overcharge only wounds T4 on 3s). And 2W models could get a smidgen cheaper just due to the prevalence of 2D weapons in general.

I like plasma's how they are. you never constantly use OD so its a good tactical option to OD.

Dandelion wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

Lol, wut? Just because these weapons can only really hurt hordes doesn't mean they are good vs hordes. Considering the weapons in a vacuum without taking into account the units that can take them is asinine. They still aren't point efficient vs horde units. Nothing is except other horde units. That is the best. It's not just a matter of not using the correct unit to counter them. Units that used to counter them no longer do, even though they are still supposed to.

How can you not be sure there is a problem when a massive amount of units (including almost the entire SM faction and most MeQs) are not fielded due to lack of efficient ways to fight hordes?

Spoletta is right in this regard. Anti-horde is achieved through high ROF, low strength, no AP guns. The ROF counters the hordes but low strength and AP keeps them from hurting vehicles and such with equal efficiency. It's true that the source of these is few and far between but they exist. Some examples include Aggressors, Taurox Prime, Skitarii Vanguard/Infiltrators etc...

Just as a theoretical exercise:
40 Boltguns hits vs Ork boyz and Marine Intercessors
- Boyz: 16.6 models lost = 100 pts lost
- Intercessors: 3.33 models lost = 60 points lost
Boltguns are about 66% more effective vs boyz than intercessors.

Compare to 40 plasma hits:
- Boyz: 26.66 models lost (33.33 overcharging) = 160 pts (200 pts)
- Intercessors: 11 models lost ( 27.7 overcharging) = 200 pts (500 pts)
Plasma is about 25% more efficient against Intercessors (or 150% overcharging RIP )

Other than plasma overcharge just being OP (GW pls nerf) I think it sufficiently illustrates how AP shifts the scale.

Your exercise doesn't work as Intercessors are already pretty durable to D1 weapons. Try any other unit and you'll see what happens. Then you have the matter of D2+ weapons.

 JimOnMars wrote:
At five points per guardsman the Imperial Guard will not be transformed into a bottom tier army. They just won't. They won't necessarily be top tier anymore...so be it.

This will instantly nerf two of the biggest problems in the game: namely overpowered Imperial Guard and overpowered Imperial Soup.

Yes, it leaves Eldar (of all stripes) that desperately need a similar treatment.

I can't understand why people don't want to make the game better.

Lol. This ain't the big leagues kid. You aren't dealing with good players who want a fairly balanced playing field. You are dealing with some of the worst and yet loudest players the internet knows, who will defend or justify absolutely anything their own army has. And to no surprise, titles like this are a magnet to them.

I lost count of the number of people who came in here defending Guardsmen stating "it's just SOUP, its just the CP FARM seeing play in tournaments". Then when it was stated that this wasn't the case at all, and the most successful army at BAO was ig PRIMARY, it got chalked it up to "that's just the [blood captains/custodes] winning their lists for them then" when neither elements were present. "Well, they still aren't using infantry" uhhhh they ran 1400 pts worth of infantry. Have any of them backed down from that pointed after being corrected? Not yet, they instead just jump to a new, even more outlandish angle to downplay instead.

These people are not interested in improving the game. There is no objectivity here.

People aren't mad at Guardsmen (save maybe the Space Marine players, but balancing a game off of Bolter Porn just isn't going to happen), they're mad at the Grand Strategist/Kurov's Aquilla CP Battalion. The fix is easy in my opinion - you should only be able to nominate your Warlord from the faction that takes up the most points in your list. Done.

 Larks wrote:
People aren't mad at Guardsmen (save maybe the Space Marine players, but balancing a game off of Bolter Porn just isn't going to happen),

Actually as someone playing AdMech, CSM, and Necrons I'm mad at Infantry too.

Regarding Anti-Horde weapons, has anyone run numbers using a hypothetical gun with +1 saves, instead of a negative modifier?

Something like 30 lasgun shots that give +1 to saves. GEQ move to a 4+, MEQ move to a 2+?

I haven't run any numbers, but that might skew a weapon into being "bad" against tough stuff, while being good against chaff.

Oh, what the hell. 36 hits on MEQ would be 12 wounds, and 2 casualties if they have a 2+ save. 2*13 = 26 points

36 hits on Guardsmen would be 18 wounds and 9 casualties if they have a 4+ save. 9*4 (currently) = 36 points.

A weapon that is substantially more efficient at killing Guardsmen then it is at killing MEQ. Perhaps a rule that if a save would become 1+ or better, it instead is treated as 2+ with a 4+ reroll. Absolute garbage against TEQ.

Edit: This weapon would work best at S4. That way, it is better against T3, than T4, and better against T4 than T5. That would probably best represent the changes between light, medium, and heavy infantry.

That would literally make Power Armor as good as TEQ and CEQ. No.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

Lol, wut? Just because these weapons can only really hurt hordes doesn't mean they are good vs hordes. Considering the weapons in a vacuum without taking into account the units that can take them is asinine. They still aren't point efficient vs horde units. Nothing is except other horde units. That is the best. It's not just a matter of not using the correct unit to counter them. Units that used to counter them no longer do, even though they are still supposed to.

How can you not be sure there is a problem when a massive amount of units (including almost the entire SM faction and most MeQs) are not fielded due to lack of efficient ways to fight hordes?

Spoletta is right in this regard. Anti-horde is achieved through high ROF, low strength, no AP guns. The ROF counters the hordes but low strength and AP keeps them from hurting vehicles and such with equal efficiency. It's true that the source of these is few and far between but they exist. Some examples include Aggressors, Taurox Prime, Skitarii Vanguard/Infiltrators etc...

Just as a theoretical exercise:
40 Boltguns hits vs Ork boyz and Marine Intercessors
- Boyz: 16.6 models lost = 100 pts lost
- Intercessors: 3.33 models lost = 60 points lost
Boltguns are about 66% more effective vs boyz than intercessors.

Compare to 40 plasma hits:
- Boyz: 26.66 models lost (33.33 overcharging) = 160 pts (200 pts)
- Intercessors: 11 models lost ( 27.7 overcharging) = 200 pts (500 pts)
Plasma is about 25% more efficient against Intercessors (or 150% overcharging RIP )

Other than plasma overcharge just being OP (GW pls nerf) I think it sufficiently illustrates how AP shifts the scale.

Your exercise doesn't work as Intercessors are already pretty durable to D1 weapons. Try any other unit and you'll see what happens. Then you have the matter of D2+ weapons.

I chose intercessors because I vastly prefer the 2W profile, but since we're just throwing numbers out:

boyz vs tacticool merhines
40 bolter shots:
- Boyz = 100 pts lost
- 6.66 models lost = 87 pts lost
Bolters are 15% better vs boyz

40 plasma shots
- Boyz = 160 pts lost
- 22.2 models lost = 289 pts lost
Plasma is 80% better against marines

So overall the trend is still there, it's just that marines cost too much relative to durability and not really a lack of weapons that are better against cheap bodies.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

I like plasma's how they are. you never constantly use OD so its a good tactical option to OD.

imo, if Tau plasma is stuck at S6, Imperial plasma should drop to S6/S7. And honestly, it helps out melta at the same time.

 Crimson wrote:

 Eonfuzz wrote:


Lets theorycraft.

Within the current design space of 8e, how would you create and define an 'anti-horde' weapon. This weapon has to be bad (or at least average) against non-hordes.

I said this on previous page: Flamers should be '2d6 autohits, cannot cause more hits than there are models in the target unit.' You could apply the same logic to some former blast weapons as well.

I like this, increase former 'heavy' weapon dice size and cap it to number of units in a squad.

 SHUPPET wrote:


Lol. This ain't the big leagues kid. You aren't dealing with good players who want a fairly balanced playing field. You are dealing with some of the worst and yet loudest players the internet knows, who will defend or justify absolutely anything their own army has. And to no surprise, titles like this are a magnet to them.

I lost count of the number of people who came in here defending Guardsmen stating "it's just SOUP, its just the CP FARM seeing play in tournaments". Then when it was stated that this wasn't the case at all, and the most successful army at BAO was ig PRIMARY, it got chalked it up to "that's just the [blood captains/custodes] winning their lists for them then" when neither elements were present. "Well, they still aren't using infantry" uhhhh they ran 1400 pts worth of infantry. Have any of them backed down from that pointed after being corrected? Not yet, they instead just jump to a new, even more outlandish angle to downplay instead.

These people are not interested in improving the game. There is no objectivity here.

Eh, I think it's about perception and the 'feel' of reason.
Look at it this way; the majority of people that play mono IG see that *almost every* imperial army uses them as a CP farm while also receiving cries of "Op! Op! Hark, nerf the guard!".
Could you imagine if it was the other way around? Marines were being used as a CP farm in these soupy armies? The forums would have a completely different reaction "But marines are meant to be good!", "I mean, it makes sense in the fluff", "Its about time marines have it good".

I haven't played against enough guard to say weather they are good or not (but I have played against my share of CP farms) and anecdotally those CP farms had no output other than just CP.
Personally I'd rather see an elegant solution nipping the current problem of these farms in the bud, and further changes *if* guard does indeed surface to the top. But i feel like there are more problematic things that need addressing ASAP.

Dandelion wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

Lol, wut? Just because these weapons can only really hurt hordes doesn't mean they are good vs hordes. Considering the weapons in a vacuum without taking into account the units that can take them is asinine. They still aren't point efficient vs horde units. Nothing is except other horde units. That is the best. It's not just a matter of not using the correct unit to counter them. Units that used to counter them no longer do, even though they are still supposed to.

How can you not be sure there is a problem when a massive amount of units (including almost the entire SM faction and most MeQs) are not fielded due to lack of efficient ways to fight hordes?

Spoletta is right in this regard. Anti-horde is achieved through high ROF, low strength, no AP guns. The ROF counters the hordes but low strength and AP keeps them from hurting vehicles and such with equal efficiency. It's true that the source of these is few and far between but they exist. Some examples include Aggressors, Taurox Prime, Skitarii Vanguard/Infiltrators etc...

Just as a theoretical exercise:
40 Boltguns hits vs Ork boyz and Marine Intercessors
- Boyz: 16.6 models lost = 100 pts lost
- Intercessors: 3.33 models lost = 60 points lost
Boltguns are about 66% more effective vs boyz than intercessors.

Compare to 40 plasma hits:
- Boyz: 26.66 models lost (33.33 overcharging) = 160 pts (200 pts)
- Intercessors: 11 models lost ( 27.7 overcharging) = 200 pts (500 pts)
Plasma is about 25% more efficient against Intercessors (or 150% overcharging RIP )

Other than plasma overcharge just being OP (GW pls nerf) I think it sufficiently illustrates how AP shifts the scale.

I get what you mean, but this is all splitting hairs. My point before, and now, is that weapons which are supposed to be anti horde are not performing in that role anymore. Spoletta was splitting hairs with the claim that some weapons are defined as anti horde. Splitting hairs on the definition doesn't fix the mechanics not working though. And as you say, there isn't enough that exist. There used to be, because small arms like bolters on common troops would chew through horde units. Now they do not because they lost efficiency. It's that simple.

Ice_can wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
The most interesting thing I've seen recently on this is the relative point values GW assigned to these 'core' troops units in Kill Team. Is it the same ruleset? No, but still very similar with generally the same rules:

Spoiler:

Space Marine Scout 10 (11 with Camo Cloak)
Space Marine Tactical Marine 12

Astra Militarum Infantry Guardsman 5

Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii Ranger/Vanguard 9

Chaos Space Marine 12
Chaos Space Marine Cultist 4

Death Guard Plague Marines 14
Death Guard Pox Walkers 3

Thousand Sons Rubric Marines 16
Thousand Sons Tzaangors 7
Asuryani Guardian Defender 7
Asuryani Storm Guardian 6
Asuryani Ranger 11
Asuryani Dire Avenger 10

Drukari Kabalite Warrior 7
Drukari Wych 8

Necron Warrior 12
Necron Immortal 16

Ork Boy 6
Ork Gretchin 3

Tau Fire Warrior 8
Tau Breacher 8

Tyranid Termagant 4
Tyranid Hormagaunt 4
Tyranid Warrior 20
Tyranid Genestealer 11

Genestealer Cults Neophyte Hybrid 5

Seems in this limited selection of units, the Guardman is near the bottom with only Cultist and Gretchin coming in lower for obvious reasons. Others have been adjusted around, so its might not be just Guardsman that are in need of a points adjustment to level the playing field.

Are Drukari missing power from pain or something else to explain why they're getting what at first glance feel like undercosted units?

Well, there are a few possible reasons for DE being cheap:

- Outside of special weapons, DE infantry have very lacklustre offence. Kabalite Warriors have what is probably the second-worst weapon on a basic infantry unit after the lasgun, but without the orders and such that make the lasgun effective. Wyches are a S3 melee unit.

- They're still pretty fragile. Kabalites are Guardsmen with 6+ FNP, Wyches (when not in combat) have a 6++ and 6+ FNP.

- Perhaps more importantly, DE infantry have almost no HQ support. They have no psychic powers, and only 1 HQ aura that can affect each subfaction. So, while marines have stuff like: reroll 1s to hit, reroll all hits, reroll 1s to wound, reroll all wounds, reroll all misses in combat etc. Wyches can reroll 1s to hit in combat with a nearby Succubus. That's it. De Warriors can reroll 1s to hit with an Archon, but if either of them is on a transport then they won't even get that bonus.

To be honest, I'm not sure whether I'm keen on DE troops being so cheap/disposable, especially with their elites being scrapped. Regardless, the above is my best guess for why they're cheap.

Getting into Tyranids recently, I found it interesting that Guard and Hormagaunts swapped cost in Kill Team. Hormagaunts at 4 makes more sense to me, even with 2 attacks they're still very limited in ability due to being S3.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That would literally make Power Armor as good as TEQ and CEQ. No.

That's the entire point, no?

 vipoid wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
The most interesting thing I've seen recently on this is the relative point values GW assigned to these 'core' troops units in Kill Team. Is it the same ruleset? No, but still very similar with generally the same rules:

Spoiler:

Space Marine Scout 10 (11 with Camo Cloak)
Space Marine Tactical Marine 12

Astra Militarum Infantry Guardsman 5

Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii Ranger/Vanguard 9

Chaos Space Marine 12
Chaos Space Marine Cultist 4

Death Guard Plague Marines 14
Death Guard Pox Walkers 3

Thousand Sons Rubric Marines 16
Thousand Sons Tzaangors 7
Asuryani Guardian Defender 7
Asuryani Storm Guardian 6
Asuryani Ranger 11
Asuryani Dire Avenger 10

Drukari Kabalite Warrior 7
Drukari Wych 8

Necron Warrior 12
Necron Immortal 16

Ork Boy 6
Ork Gretchin 3

Tau Fire Warrior 8
Tau Breacher 8

Tyranid Termagant 4
Tyranid Hormagaunt 4
Tyranid Warrior 20
Tyranid Genestealer 11

Genestealer Cults Neophyte Hybrid 5

Seems in this limited selection of units, the Guardman is near the bottom with only Cultist and Gretchin coming in lower for obvious reasons. Others have been adjusted around, so its might not be just Guardsman that are in need of a points adjustment to level the playing field.

Are Drukari missing power from pain or something else to explain why they're getting what at first glance feel like undercosted units?

Well, there are a few possible reasons for DE being cheap:

- Outside of special weapons, DE infantry have very lacklustre offence. Kabalite Warriors have what is probably the second-worst weapon on a basic infantry unit after the lasgun, but without the orders and such that make the lasgun effective. Wyches are a S3 melee unit.

- They're still pretty fragile. Kabalites are Guardsmen with 6+ FNP, Wyches (when not in combat) have a 6++ and 6+ FNP.

- Perhaps more importantly, DE infantry have almost no HQ support. They have no psychic powers, and only 1 HQ aura that can affect each subfaction. So, while marines have stuff like: reroll 1s to hit, reroll all hits, reroll 1s to wound, reroll all wounds, reroll all misses in combat etc. Wyches can reroll 1s to hit in combat with a nearby Succubus. That's it. De Warriors can reroll 1s to hit with an Archon, but if either of them is on a transport then they won't even get that bonus.

To be honest, I'm not sure whether I'm keen on DE troops being so cheap/disposable, especially with their elites being scrapped. Regardless, the above is my best guess for why they're cheap.

I was asking specifically about how they work in kill team to understand why they seem to have come of better than most in the kill team points system. But it does show that current 40K infantry points costs appear to be very off.

But just to pick upon your comparison of kabs to guardsmen Kabalities arn't guardsmen stats.
I don't see many BS3+, WS4+ guardsmen on the table as they are 6ppm aswell as kabs but without WS3+, PFP or fast open top transports with FNP's to zip about in.

Ice_can wrote:

I was asking specifically about how they work in kill team to understand why they seem to have come of better than most in the kill team points system. But it does show that current 40K infantry points costs appear to be very off.

Ah, okay. Sorry, I missed the Kill Team bit.

Ice_can wrote:

But just to pick upon your comparison of kabs to guardsmen Kabalities arn't guardsmen stats.

I said they were little better than guardsmen in terms of defence.

Ice_can wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
The most interesting thing I've seen recently on this is the relative point values GW assigned to these 'core' troops units in Kill Team. Is it the same ruleset? No, but still very similar with generally the same rules:

Spoiler:

Space Marine Scout 10 (11 with Camo Cloak)
Space Marine Tactical Marine 12

Astra Militarum Infantry Guardsman 5

Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii Ranger/Vanguard 9

Chaos Space Marine 12
Chaos Space Marine Cultist 4

Death Guard Plague Marines 14
Death Guard Pox Walkers 3

Thousand Sons Rubric Marines 16
Thousand Sons Tzaangors 7
Asuryani Guardian Defender 7
Asuryani Storm Guardian 6
Asuryani Ranger 11
Asuryani Dire Avenger 10

Drukari Kabalite Warrior 7
Drukari Wych 8

Necron Warrior 12
Necron Immortal 16

Ork Boy 6
Ork Gretchin 3

Tau Fire Warrior 8
Tau Breacher 8

Tyranid Termagant 4
Tyranid Hormagaunt 4
Tyranid Warrior 20
Tyranid Genestealer 11

Genestealer Cults Neophyte Hybrid 5

Seems in this limited selection of units, the Guardman is near the bottom with only Cultist and Gretchin coming in lower for obvious reasons. Others have been adjusted around, so its might not be just Guardsman that are in need of a points adjustment to level the playing field.

Are Drukari missing power from pain or something else to explain why they're getting what at first glance feel like undercosted units?

Well, there are a few possible reasons for DE being cheap:

- Outside of special weapons, DE infantry have very lacklustre offence. Kabalite Warriors have what is probably the second-worst weapon on a basic infantry unit after the lasgun, but without the orders and such that make the lasgun effective. Wyches are a S3 melee unit.

- They're still pretty fragile. Kabalites are Guardsmen with 6+ FNP, Wyches (when not in combat) have a 6++ and 6+ FNP.

- Perhaps more importantly, DE infantry have almost no HQ support. They have no psychic powers, and only 1 HQ aura that can affect each subfaction. So, while marines have stuff like: reroll 1s to hit, reroll all hits, reroll 1s to wound, reroll all wounds, reroll all misses in combat etc. Wyches can reroll 1s to hit in combat with a nearby Succubus. That's it. De Warriors can reroll 1s to hit with an Archon, but if either of them is on a transport then they won't even get that bonus.

To be honest, I'm not sure whether I'm keen on DE troops being so cheap/disposable, especially with their elites being scrapped. Regardless, the above is my best guess for why they're cheap.

I was asking specifically about how they work in kill team to understand why they seem to have come of better than most in the kill team points system. But it does show that current 40K infantry points costs appear to be very off.

But just to pick upon your comparison of kabs to guardsmen Kabalities arn't guardsmen stats.
I don't see many BS3+, WS4+ guardsmen on the table as they are 6ppm aswell as kabs but without WS3+, PFP or fast open top transports with FNP's to zip about in.

Splinter Rifles go a lot further in regular 40k where higher toughness is more common

 SHUPPET wrote:

Splinter Rifles go a lot further in regular 40k where higher toughness is more common

I disagree. A lot of high-toughness targets are vehicles, against which splinter rifles are all but useless. And stuff like Monsters typically have so many wounds (not to mention armour and such) that trying to take them down - or even do meaningful damage - with AP- 4+ poison is a joke.

Meanwhile, it leaves Dark Eldar very poor against actual infantry.

This thread is starting to feel like a contest of who can downplay their top 5 army the hardest.

If kalibites had to footslog or only had basic weapons some of this might be valid. You can't just ignore the synergy of their incredible transports or access to special weapons when evaluating the unit.

JimOnMars wrote:Anti-horde weapons could get 1 shot for every 10 models in a target unit, round up. Kind of a kludge but it would do the trick.

I dunno, I always feel a horde is "more than 10 models", not 10 exactly. Too many units start at 5 and buy up to 10, with taking the 10 often seeing only a small payout, for 10 to be the number. Who would ever take a full unit of Skitarii, or a full Tactical Squad if they knew that by doing that, they are subject to an extra d6 shots or the like. 11+ means that Combined Infantry Squads, Conscripts, Cultists, and bricks of Boyz get the extra hits, but not a full squad of elite or semi-elite infantry.

Enigma of the Absolute wrote:What is required is an abstract rule mechanic which adequately represents the fact that larger groups of massed infantry will clustered more closely together and will therefore be more susceptible to high RoF or explosive weapons when compared with smaller elite units.

In previous editions this was dealt with less abstractly with the use of templates but that allowed for gamey model placement shenanigans.

One idea would be to address this with key words. Let's say you have 'Shock Infantry' and 'Horde Infantry'. Regular infantry doesn't have a codeword and weapons affect it normally. Some weapons have a greater or lesser effect against Shock Infantry or Horde Infantry.

The shock / horde distinction would largely represent a tactical distinction. Horde infantry are units which rely primarily on strength of numbers whereas shock infantry are going to use mobility and cover to use the element of surprise.

In previous editions, with the exception of large blasts and torrent weapons, you could usually position to make template weapons have a fairly minimal effect.

For your other point, I actually really like that - but would units be granted keywords by how they are played, or how they are designed within their army? For example, in the context of Guard, Conscripts are Horde, Scions are Shock, and Infantry Squads and Veterans are "Regular".

Still, I can see some potential here...so long as it isn't made overly complex. For example, the Flamer would only have to have one small line added to its description "This weapon makes an additional 1d6 attacks vs units with the Horde keyword" or "This weapon is considered to be Assault 2d6 vs units with the Horde keyword."

Huh, it could also work with buff/debuff type units as well, instead of buffing everything in a 6" bubble, the buffer could grant a more interesting/varied buff to a specific keyword.

jcd386 wrote:
If kalibites had to footslog or only had basic weapons some of this might be valid. You can't just ignore the synergy of their incredible transports or access to special weapons when evaluating the unit.

Especially if the Guardsmen being compared to are considered to be in range of an Officer.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Your exercise doesn't work as Intercessors are already pretty durable to D1 weapons. Try any other unit and you'll see what happens. Then you have the matter of D2+ weapons.

Under the current system expensive elite infantry just doesn't work at one wound (unless they have Discusntingly Resilient or something like that.) I mean sure, it might work for sacrifial glass cannon unit, but not if you're supposed to build your entire army on them like the marines. Lets all just accept this and stop trying to fix the tactical marines. Be like Cawl and accept that they're a failure and embrace the replacement. Primaris statline will work, GW just need to show some restraint in handing out D2+ weapons or at least price them appropriately.

 SHUPPET wrote:
This thread is starting to feel like a contest of who can downplay their top 5 army the hardest.

Same thing as usual then.

I can see why an SM player would complain about Guardsmen and Kabalites.
DE/Guard players complaining at each other feels silly.

Then you have people pointing out that mathematically 7 point Skitarri Rangers are quite good - and they are - but how many Ad Mech mass ranger builds are sweeping the meta?

The thing about a unit is you have the offensive curve and the defensive curve. The problem with tacticals and intercessors is that they are okay versus small arms, bad versus high AP/D2 weapons, and they always have crap guns.
Sort out the guns and the toughness would be less of an issue.

@ Slayerfan:

Yes, the idea was to create a weapon profile that was more efficient at killing GEQ than it is at killing Elite infantry. For example, if we resolve 36 s4 hits with a +1 save modifier, and treat 1+ saves, or better, as 2+ with a 4+ reroll, we could have...

T5, 2+ base > 36 hits, 12 wounds, 11 saves (2+, 4+ rr) = 1 damage

T4,3+ base > 36 hits, 18 wounds, 15 saves, 3 damage

T3,5+ base > 36 hits, 24 wounds, 12 saves, 12 damage.

Bonuses to saves result in better improvements to better save models, because failure rates drop more substantially. MEQ with a +1 save have their save failure rate halved, while GEQ have their failure rate go to 3/4. T-shirt saves are only improved to 4/5 the previous rate.

If people are looking to have a weapon with an anti-horde focus, S4 with a +1 save mod and lots of shots is where it's at. Fluff-wise, some kind of high RoF shotgun, firing relatively low velocity shot that would bounce harmlessly off of ceramite due to lack of penetration power, but that would shred exposed flesh from the bone. Something like a Fragstorm cannon.

Against GEQ, S2 should be the way to go, since T3 models are wounded twice as much as T4 models. Maybe even ignoring armor saves of 5+ or worse but no AP against other models.

That way, each hit would kill 1/3 of a GEQ but 1/12 Necron Warriors or 1/18 MEQs.
Fire Warriors and Skitarii might be problematic with their 4+ save, only losing 1/6 wounds per hit.

But introducing a wholly new weapon profile should result in point adjustments anyway.

S2 has no functional difference between T4, and T5, and T5 has become a fairly common Infantry profile. In that case, S2 becomes more efficient vs T5 than it is against T4.

You are right. S2 would need a special rule so it cannot wound T5 oder T6 models.

From a game mechanic perspective, GW has moved away from ignoring a given save value, and instead prefers modifiers.

Also, creating a rule that prevents S2 from wounding T5+ goes against another mechanic of allowing anything to wound on a 6+, in 8th edition.

Not that it's a bad idea, but it breaks two key game mechanics.

 SHUPPET wrote:
This thread is starting to feel like a contest of who can downplay their top 5 army the hardest.

Yeah, this is bananas.

But at least something positive has come out of this. It wasn't something about "Tau players" or "Eldar players" as a group, like many people claimed during 7th edition. When presented with the dilema of admiting that the faction they play is unbalanced/OP/etc..., many, many players will become apologists for their faction.

 greatbigtree wrote:
From a game mechanic perspective, GW has moved away from ignoring a given save value, and instead prefers modifiers.

Also, creating a rule that prevents S2 from wounding T5+ goes against another mechanic of allowing anything to wound on a 6+, in 8th edition.

Not that it's a bad idea, but it breaks two key game mechanics.

That's true, but why should GW keep it if it doesn't work properly?

Trollbert wrote:
Against GEQ, S2 should be the way to go, since T3 models are wounded twice as much as T4 models. Maybe even ignoring armor saves of 5+ or worse but no AP against other models.

Simpler idea - S4 gun that deals two hits per shot if the target is T3 or lower. That way it wouldn't affect as much T5 people complain above, though IMO that's really non-issue.

@ Trollbert:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a traditionalist for tradition's sake, but the solution I presented works without special rules that break overall design philosophy... other than adding the rules for resolving 1+ saves, which I think should be universal. Good reason for Terminators to be in cover, to improve their survival against small arms in general. I propose my solution resolves the issue of creating a weapon profile that is more efficient ( in terms of points killed) at killing chaff infantry than it is at killing elite infantry, while maintaining overall game design features.

@ Irbis:

That profile ignores chaff infantry like Orks. Not that Orks particularly need to be shat upon any more than they have been, the goal I perceived was to create a profile suitable for efficiently clearing all hordes.

Just make infantry 5 points. A conscript cost 4 points and has bs 5+. It's obvious. There is no point in debate. Just make it happen GW.

Also - while your at it GW. Why don't you just make it so every army capable of generation the number of command points they need to function. Allies should be a cool option - not a requirement for competitive play.

kurhanik wrote:

JimOnMars wrote:Anti-horde weapons could get 1 shot for every 10 models in a target unit, round up. Kind of a kludge but it would do the trick.

I dunno, I always feel a horde is "more than 10 models", not 10 exactly. Too many units start at 5 and buy up to 10, with taking the 10 often seeing only a small payout, for 10 to be the number. Who would ever take a full unit of Skitarii, or a full Tactical Squad if they knew that by doing that, they are subject to an extra d6 shots or the like. 11+ means that Combined Infantry Squads, Conscripts, Cultists, and bricks of Boyz get the extra hits, but not a full squad of elite or semi-elite infantry.

Personally I'd favour something along the lines of "Gains d3 shots for every 5 models in the unit" this would limit their usage against low model count unit's (which also tend to be quite expensive) but would make them increasingly useful the larger the unit it's fired against is for example a 5 man unit of tac's would only receive d3 shots whereas a 30 man unit of conscripts would receive 6d3 shots. Player's could or course get around it by taking smaller unit's or by buying upgrades that reduce the size of the unit etc (Heavy weapons in infantry squads for example) but things like that come with disadvantages of their own.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Just make infantry 5 points. A conscript cost 4 points and has bs 5+. It's obvious. There is no point in debate. Just make it happen GW.

Also - while your at it GW. Why don't you just make it so every army capable of generation the number of command points they need to function. Allies should be a cool option - not a requirement for competitive play.

I'm all for guardsmen being 5 points per model, gives a nice gradient from conscripts to vets and makes both a little more appealing. There's also the fact that I don't think it'll really change anything, it'll hurt pure guard lists because it'll cut down on our firepower by a fair bit but the CP batteries everyone complains about? it'll add what, 30 points to the cost of one? The CP those provides are still worth the increase in points, it'll hurt those lists a bit for sure but I doubt it'll change anything massively. Bumping guardsmen up a point might solve some issues but it doesn't change the fact that allies are still busted and that the CP system could probably use some improvements. Fix those first then we'll be in a better place to evaluate guardsmen's value.

Guardsmen should be at least 6 points. Mortar Teams should also be more expensive.

Their HQs are also deserving of a price increase.

I still maintain that the real problem is lethality.

The lethality of Warhammer 40k has escalated to the point where the only way to survive is to say "I literally have more wounds than you have bullets."

Baneblades/Knights getting deleted in a single turn is a symptom of a game that has a huge lethality problem. Hordes are strong only because they do not die quickly, since there is a cap on the number of shots that can be fired at them.

If, like AOS, damage spilled over (so a Lascannon hit could kill d6 guardsmen), you'd see even Hordes evaporate. So perhaps we could start by reducing the lethality of big guns, which makes elite units tougher, while keeping the same lethality of currently "useless" guns (e.g. bolters). That way, the typical guns fired at Guardsmen would kill them just as dead, but the typical guns fired at Space Marines would not kill Marines as dead.

Double-firing on the Leman Russ is bad. 24 Str 6 shots from a Hive Tyrant is bad. Captain Smash one-rounding a Knight is bad. 500 attacks in the Fight Phase is bad. There are so many units that fire a bazillionty shots that hit like a truck that the only way to survive is to have a bazillionty-and-one wounds on the board, which is best accomplished by buying the cheapest wounds possible.

I'm not surprised to see a forum where Castellans are getting one-shot complain about Guard. The amount of sheer lethality in 40k is Too Damn High!

 Marmatag wrote:
Guardsmen should be at least 6 points. Mortar Teams should also be more expensive.

Their HQs are also deserving of a price increase.

At 5 they are still great. The real problem outside of being undercosted base is orders. Orders are absolutely too powerful and need to be brought down. Their effects should be random/limmited to infantry squads/ the hq's should also be more expensive or - maybe their hq's should be 1 wound.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Guardsmen should be at least 6 points. Mortar Teams should also be more expensive.

Their HQs are also deserving of a price increase.

At 5 they are still great. The real problem outside of being undercosted base is orders. Orders are absolutely too powerful and need to be brought down. Their effects should be random/limmited to infantry squads/ the hq's should also be more expensive or - maybe their hq's should be 1 wound.

I think instead of nerfing orders, just get rid of regimental doctrines. Give Regiments an extra unique order to make up for it, but it's still limited by how many orders can be issued so would be a lot fairer!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I still maintain that the real problem is lethality.

The lethality of Warhammer 40k has escalated to the point where the only way to survive is to say "I literally have more wounds than you have bullets."

Baneblades/Knights getting deleted in a single turn is a symptom of a game that has a huge lethality problem. Hordes are strong only because they do not die quickly, since there is a cap on the number of shots that can be fired at them.

If, like AOS, damage spilled over (so a Lascannon hit could kill d6 guardsmen), you'd see even Hordes evaporate. So perhaps we could start by reducing the lethality of big guns, which makes elite units tougher, while keeping the same lethality of currently "useless" guns (e.g. bolters). That way, the typical guns fired at Guardsmen would kill them just as dead, but the typical guns fired at Space Marines would not kill Marines as dead.

Double-firing on the Leman Russ is bad. 24 Str 6 shots from a Hive Tyrant is bad. Captain Smash one-rounding a Knight is bad. 500 attacks in the Fight Phase is bad. There are so many units that fire a bazillionty shots that hit like a truck that the only way to survive is to have a bazillionty-and-one wounds on the board, which is best accomplished by buying the cheapest wounds possible.

I'm not surprised to see a forum where Castellans are getting one-shot complain about Guard. The amount of sheer lethality in 40k is Too Damn High!

Option 1: Nebulous plan involving total rebalancing of the game.
Option 2: Increase cost of guardsmen 1-2 points per model.

hmm

Stux wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Guardsmen should be at least 6 points. Mortar Teams should also be more expensive.

Their HQs are also deserving of a price increase.

At 5 they are still great. The real problem outside of being undercosted base is orders. Orders are absolutely too powerful and need to be brought down. Their effects should be random/limmited to infantry squads/ the hq's should also be more expensive or - maybe their hq's should be 1 wound.

I think instead of nerfing orders, just get rid of regimental doctrines. Give Regiments an extra unique order to make up for it, but it's still limited by how many orders can be issued so would be a lot fairer!

So now that every codex in the game is getting a form of "regimental doctrines" IG should be stript of theirs.... This thread is becoming more laughable by the day

I love the idea of +1 to armor save weapons.

I think that should be the profile of flamers. Up the range to 12", d3 shots per 5 models in the unit.

S3-4, +1 ap. Makes them work against hordes, actually some defense to getting charged and won't totally destroy elite units.

Could also change a couple weapon profiles to fit this anti-horde niche (s3, +1 ap and hella shots).

I feel like this is the best weapon profile. Even if guard go to 5-6 points (should be 5) and grand strat + kuvo's get nerfed to the ground (1 roll per strat, no stacking) there needs to be a weapon that can deal with hordes (especially once Orks get their dex and we are overrun by the green tide WWWWAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!)

 Marmatag wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I still maintain that the real problem is lethality.

The lethality of Warhammer 40k has escalated to the point where the only way to survive is to say "I literally have more wounds than you have bullets."

Baneblades/Knights getting deleted in a single turn is a symptom of a game that has a huge lethality problem. Hordes are strong only because they do not die quickly, since there is a cap on the number of shots that can be fired at them.

If, like AOS, damage spilled over (so a Lascannon hit could kill d6 guardsmen), you'd see even Hordes evaporate. So perhaps we could start by reducing the lethality of big guns, which makes elite units tougher, while keeping the same lethality of currently "useless" guns (e.g. bolters). That way, the typical guns fired at Guardsmen would kill them just as dead, but the typical guns fired at Space Marines would not kill Marines as dead.

Double-firing on the Leman Russ is bad. 24 Str 6 shots from a Hive Tyrant is bad. Captain Smash one-rounding a Knight is bad. 500 attacks in the Fight Phase is bad. There are so many units that fire a bazillionty shots that hit like a truck that the only way to survive is to have a bazillionty-and-one wounds on the board, which is best accomplished by buying the cheapest wounds possible.

I'm not surprised to see a forum where Castellans are getting one-shot complain about Guard. The amount of sheer lethality in 40k is Too Damn High!

Option 1: Nebulous plan involving total rebalancing of the game.
Option 2: Increase cost of guardsmen 1-2 points per model.

hmm

To be honest I agree with Unit116. But as you point out they are different issues, and one is much more complex than the other. You can both make Guadsmen 1 point more expensive and try to achieve a less letal game.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I still maintain that the real problem is lethality.

The lethality of Warhammer 40k has escalated to the point where the only way to survive is to say "I literally have more wounds than you have bullets."

Baneblades/Knights getting deleted in a single turn is a symptom of a game that has a huge lethality problem. Hordes are strong only because they do not die quickly, since there is a cap on the number of shots that can be fired at them.

If, like AOS, damage spilled over (so a Lascannon hit could kill d6 guardsmen), you'd see even Hordes evaporate. So perhaps we could start by reducing the lethality of big guns, which makes elite units tougher, while keeping the same lethality of currently "useless" guns (e.g. bolters). That way, the typical guns fired at Guardsmen would kill them just as dead, but the typical guns fired at Space Marines would not kill Marines as dead.

Double-firing on the Leman Russ is bad. 24 Str 6 shots from a Hive Tyrant is bad. Captain Smash one-rounding a Knight is bad. 500 attacks in the Fight Phase is bad. There are so many units that fire a bazillionty shots that hit like a truck that the only way to survive is to have a bazillionty-and-one wounds on the board, which is best accomplished by buying the cheapest wounds possible.

I'm not surprised to see a forum where Castellans are getting one-shot complain about Guard. The amount of sheer lethality in 40k is Too Damn High!

Option 1: Nebulous plan involving total rebalancing of the game.
Option 2: Increase cost of guardsmen 1-2 points per model.

hmm

Option 3: Look at actual statistics being gathered from tournaments like the BAO and recognize that armies that were primary IG did not even make the top 5 for win % or points earned per round and that pure IG is considered so bad nobody even attempts to take it