So, as a player of other games, I wanted to talk about why elite infantry seem to be struggling to find a space in the current 40k, looking at them through a lens of 'function'. To justify that lens, I will make the base claim that "a unit with a function will have a reason to be taken." We can talk about whether or not that function is large enough as well, which I think is the problem with elite infantry right now. They have no (or not a large enough) functional window. Light infantry (i.e. cultists/imperial guardsmen) have a clear function, as I hope will become clear through this analysis.
Here is a list of functions infantry typically perform in other rules-sets:
1) Dig into terrain and become almost impossible to kill.
2) Go into any terrain, even terrain that other units cannot pass through.
3) Close with and assault the enemy in situations where other unit types are unable or unwilling to go.
4) Have better durability in aggregate (a team of 6 guys is harder to wipe completely out than 1 tank, for example).
These things are what makes them better than, say, tanks, in a given game system.
In 40k, the functional analogues are:
1) Meh, doesn't really exist, except as stratagems. Cover giving +1 to saves works on everyone, not just Infantry, and helps bullet-soaks as much as or more than elite infantry.
2) Units easily ignore terrain in 40k's movement phase. Fly units take this role from infantry and do so better to boot.
3) Elite Infantry are good at this (e.g. Khorne Berzerkers) but so are vehicles/monsters/non-infantry units (Custodes Jetbikes, Defilers, Hive Tyrants).
4) This is only true for bullet-soak guys, and is what makes them bullet soaks.
So in other words, 40k doesn't really have anything that sets infantry apart and gives them their own role that isn't overlapped by something else, except being bullet soaks. Asking for infantry to be relevant in 40k means removing the things that games with "relevant" infantry don't have:
1) If you added a mechanic to dig in and otherwise be tough on objectives, infantry will be relevant for this again, but bullet-soaks will still be better.
2) If you removed units that Fly and reduced the ability for other speedy units to go "around" terrain, than infantry marching on foot through terrain might become relevant again, though this, again, also helps bullet-soaks.
3) If you remove assaulty monsters and vehicles and whatnot, assault will be only open to Infantry, forcing elite infantry into the assault role. You lose a lot of flavour from 40k though (e.g. the iconic Space Marine Dreadnought, Imperial Knights).
4) Elite infantry will always be worse than bullet-soaks at soaking bullets, and rightfully so.
Therefore, I can conclude that in the current system of 40k, without some major changes, elite infantry can only either be utterly ridiculous (by essentially having rules that makes them not infantry, such as ignoring terrain like a Flyer), or simply not be relevant.
I think in regards to flying units there was some rule for "boots on ground" for taking objectives.
Many Elite infantry I see in Codex entries can deep-strike / infiltrate / airdrop in usually to take-out artillery or HQ units parked at the back of a force.
I find in any other respect they are good at many things but master of none: multiple models with usually more than one wound, a compromise between a vehicle or grunt troops.
I look at them in a "modern" equivalent of cavalry in the classic: soldier/artillery/cavalry tactics of Napoleonics or Civil War (or like Ninja's in the Shogun boardgame?).
BUT Fast Attack should be playing this role so I can see the dilemma.
I find I dip into that selection for roles the rest of my army cannot do:
- Mainly in "buff" roles like aura, repair, morale, healing, cheaper than HQ units.
- I find they fit the mid-distance role of ourclassing most units at assault ranges (not necessarily to charge).
- More to apply added pressure to a thrust by your forces, a catalyst of sorts.
- Good for "mop-up" detail or even assassination depending on how it enters the battlefield.
I find these guys work their best as you insert them alongside the troops to ensure the "job gets done".
I'll be honest my unpopular opinion when it comes to infentry, when they are in cover, they should get a -1 to hit and then depending on the cover they are in, a cover save that is taken before their armor or invuln save
So say you shoot space marines in cover, there is a -1 to hit them, and if you do score let's say 12 wounds the space marines player first roles their cover saves
Ruins 5+
Buildings 4+
Fortifications 4++
Then the roles not saved, are taken on armor saves as normal.
Backspacehacker wrote: I'll be honest my unpopular opinion when it comes to infentry, when they are in cover, they should get a -1 to hit and then depending on the cover they are in, a cover save that is taken before their armor or invuln save
So say you shoot space marines in cover, there is a -1 to hit them, and if you do score let's say 12 wounds the space marines player first roles their cover saves
Ruins 5+
Buildings 4+
Fortifications 4++
Then the roles not saved, are taken on armor saves as normal.
The premise of the current system is that it allows units to be partially in cover and still benefit. You've got 7 guys in the unit and 3 out. You take 10 wounds. You can take the "not in cover" armor saves on the guys out of the unit until they die. Lets say its a 5+ unit so 3 of them die after about 4 wounds taken. Now you can roll the remaining 6 wounds against the remaining 7 models with the modified 4+ save for being in cover. That's why they're doing it as an armor check. That's the only part of the combat sequence that can be divided up to differentiate between models in and out of cover in the same unit.
Talizvar wrote:Very good points and near and dear to my heart.
I think in regards to flying units there was some rule for "boots on ground" for taking objectives.
Many Elite infantry I see in Codex entries can deep-strike / infiltrate / airdrop in usually to take-out artillery or HQ units parked at the back of a force.
I find in any other respect they are good at many things but master of none: multiple models with usually more than one wound, a compromise between a vehicle or grunt troops.
I look at them in a "modern" equivalent of cavalry in the classic: soldier/artillery/cavalry tactics of Napoleonics or Civil War (or like Ninja's in the Shogun boardgame?).
BUT Fast Attack should be playing this role so I can see the dilemma.
I find I dip into that selection for roles the rest of my army cannot do:
- Mainly in "buff" roles like aura, repair, morale, healing, cheaper than HQ units.
- I find they fit the mid-distance role of ourclassing most units at assault ranges (not necessarily to charge).
- More to apply added pressure to a thrust by your forces, a catalyst of sorts.
- Good for "mop-up" detail or even assassination depending on how it enters the battlefield.
I find these guys work their best as you insert them alongside the troops to ensure the "job gets done".
You've kind of identified some of the ways good elite infantry work, but I'm still not sure it's expanded the niche well enough to make Tactical Marines better than Guardsmen.
Marmatag wrote:Or just increase the cost of the cheap chaff. This isn't rocket science.
The cheaper unit will always be a better bullet soak. You'd have to essentially make Elite Infantry and Infantry damn near the same cost before you got to the point where the functions performed by Infantry can start being taken over by Elite Infantry and at that point you've lost the distinction between elite and not elite.
Part of the point of my post is that better stats don't actually make Elite Infantry useful for anything, because the things they're being asked to do aren't really stat-related.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Backspacehacker wrote:I'll be honest my unpopular opinion when it comes to infentry, when they are in cover, they should get a -1 to hit and then depending on the cover they are in, a cover save that is taken before their armor or invuln save
So say you shoot space marines in cover, there is a -1 to hit them, and if you do score let's say 12 wounds the space marines player first roles their cover saves
Ruins 5+
Buildings 4+
Fortifications 4++
Then the roles not saved, are taken on armor saves as normal.
LunarSol wrote:
Backspacehacker wrote: I'll be honest my unpopular opinion when it comes to infentry, when they are in cover, they should get a -1 to hit and then depending on the cover they are in, a cover save that is taken before their armor or invuln save
So say you shoot space marines in cover, there is a -1 to hit them, and if you do score let's say 12 wounds the space marines player first roles their cover saves
Ruins 5+
Buildings 4+
Fortifications 4++
Then the roles not saved, are taken on armor saves as normal.
The premise of the current system is that it allows units to be partially in cover and still benefit. You've got 7 guys in the unit and 3 out. You take 10 wounds. You can take the "not in cover" armor saves on the guys out of the unit until they die. Lets say its a 5+ unit so 3 of them die after about 4 wounds taken. Now you can roll the remaining 6 wounds against the remaining 7 models with the modified 4+ save for being in cover. That's why they're doing it as an armor check. That's the only part of the combat sequence that can be divided up to differentiate between models in and out of cover in the same unit.
The problem with changing cover-related rules is it helps the bullet-soaks as well as the Elite Infantry. Ultimately, you're not making Elite Infantry useful, you're making Bullet Soaks even better at soaking bullets. So long as the only function of an Infantry unit in 40k is "durability per point" you're going to have the cheapest single-wound model you can buy be the best unit at fulfilling that role.
Marmatag wrote: Or just increase the cost of the cheap chaff. This isn't rocket science.
Sadly it would be easier to balance to make a 18-20 pt model 16-17pts, or a 16-17pt model down to 14-15pts than a 4-7pt unit up to 5-8pts.
I now it sounds the same, 1 pt up vs 1 pt down, but being 1pt on a larger point model has less weight than a 1pt on lower points model. You can keep changing points by value of 1 till they are about where we need them to be.
I'd rather Marines go down 1pt than Guardsman, Firewarriors, Kabals, etc.. go up by 1pt, and i rather Terminators/Bikers/Other complete crap units get a small rules reword, like Terminators ignore 1st -1 rend, Bikers always have Fallback and shoot.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also want to add, if Damage spilled over, that alone "could" solve many of the problems with 40k tho it might make new problems like a full tank meta. You could add the extra wounds that spill over are granted an armor saves as well, making uits like Marines much more durable than Guardsman.
I got totally sidetracked there on the cover thing. Onto the main topic:
So, what we're really talking about here is how 40k lacks "design space". There's a bunch of reasons for this, some of which comes down to the narrow viability of the 1D6 dice curve and some of it is just the tendency to use the same statline across an entire army.
Oddly, I find soup really helps with this. GW has long made design space via army wide special rules and soup armies, mixed with the need to fulfill the detachment requirements for each army individually, means there's a need for troops of different types in an army instead of "find the best, take as many as you can".
Ultimately the problem comes down to units designed without a niche. GW needs to find ways to make things like Scouts and Tac marines worth taking in the same army. At the same time, they need to go through and cut some of the redundant unit entries for things that aren't meaningfully different models. This seems to happen more often between the Troop and Elite slot and could really benefit from some Elite's being dropped to Troops with a Scion style limit on how often they could be taken.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also want to add, if Damage spilled over, that alone "could" solve many of the problems with 40k tho it might make new problems like a full tank meta. You could add the extra wounds that spill over are granted an armor saves as well, making uits like Marines much more durable than Guardsman.
While I wouldn't find it odd for a giant laser cannon to hit more than one guy as the beam tears through the unit, I prefer things that help make target prioritization more important. I really feel like GW mostly just needs to shuffle around the S/T numbers a bit to give elite infantry some significant durability over light infantry. I'd also not at all be sad to see weapons apply Leadership penalties as an effect. Rather than let a Lascannon spill damage over to the rest of the unit, I'd be happy to see it put the unit at -2 Ld to make it more likely that additional models flee.
Backspacehacker wrote: I'll be honest my unpopular opinion when it comes to infentry, when they are in cover, they should get a -1 to hit and then depending on the cover they are in, a cover save that is taken before their armor or invuln save
So say you shoot space marines in cover, there is a -1 to hit them, and if you do score let's say 12 wounds the space marines player first roles their cover saves
Ruins 5+
Buildings 4+
Fortifications 4++
Then the roles not saved, are taken on armor saves as normal.
The premise of the current system is that it allows units to be partially in cover and still benefit. You've got 7 guys in the unit and 3 out. You take 10 wounds. You can take the "not in cover" armor saves on the guys out of the unit until they die. Lets say its a 5+ unit so 3 of them die after about 4 wounds taken. Now you can roll the remaining 6 wounds against the remaining 7 models with the modified 4+ save for being in cover. That's why they're doing it as an armor check. That's the only part of the combat sequence that can be divided up to differentiate between models in and out of cover in the same unit.
The problem with changing cover-related rules is it helps the bullet-soaks as well as the Elite Infantry. Ultimately, you're not making Elite Infantry useful, you're making Bullet Soaks even better at soaking bullets. So long as the only function of an Infantry unit in 40k is "durability per point" you're going to have the cheapest single-wound model you can buy be the best unit at fulfilling that role.
I don't think that's necessarily true. Improving the quality of wounds would go a long way. T5 marines would make the difference between Guard and Marines far more meaningful; T6 would be really substantial.
Maybe elite infantry should be worth more than non-elite infantry when contesting an objective? This is especially true with the boots on the ground rule. So maybe scouts are 1 per 1 model but Tacs are 2 for each model. Or, another way would be compare base unit cost to base unit cost (that is the base cost of a model without special equipment). So a scout is 11 pts per model, a Tac is 13 points and intercessors are 18 points (per BA codex). That mean that if 5 scouts try to contest against 5 Tacs they would lose due to their value being 55 vs the Tac's 65 point value.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Maybe elite infantry should be worth more than non-elite infantry when contesting an objective? This is especially true with the boots on the ground rule. So maybe scouts are 1 per 1 model but Tacs are 2 for each model. Or, another way would be compare base unit cost to base unit cost (that is the base cost of a model without special equipment). So a scout is 11 pts per model, a Tac is 13 points and intercessors are 18 points (per BA codex). That mean that if 5 scouts try to contest against 5 Tacs they would lose due to their value being 55 vs the Tac's 65 point value.
This is a good start, but I'm not sure it goes far enough. Contesting objectives has value, to be sure, but is it high enough that "this unit contests objectives better than this other unit" is really a defining functional niche for a unit to occupy?
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LunarSol wrote: I don't think that's necessarily true. Improving the quality of wounds would go a long way. T5 marines would make the difference between Guard and Marines far more meaningful; T6 would be really substantial.
Yes, but at T6 you're talking about Space Marines as tough as Basilisk Artillery Tanks. Is that really what you want? And I'm not even sure that would make Marines good, because durability is of little utility without power, or so the argument goes (I tend to disagree, but 40k's lethality is so high that generally it's impossible to be truly "tough" unless you have more wounds than the enemy has damage).
Before it got drowned out by 15 extra pages of bickering, someone noted an interesting idea in the 5 Point Guardsmen thread. It was to give all Infantry models an additional keyword, say "Horde" "Line" and "Shock", and different weapons would interact with them in different ways. Weapons that score randomized hits (1d3, 1d6, etc) would score extra hits vs units with the "Horde" keyword, etc. It would create a situation where specific weapons for anti-horde duty exist that doesn't also hurt more elite units just as much or more. You would have things like flamers that actually function for swarm duty, while Plasma would still work vs more elite units.
It wouldn't solve everything, but it would mean situations will exist where using a Horde would be a bad idea, while a more elite unit could just soak the hits. If a flamer guaranteed 2d6 hits, or 1d6+3 hits, or whatnot vs Horde units, while only dealing 1d3 hits vs Shock units, we'd get the situation where you'd want the right tool for the right job, and cannot overly depend on any one typing.
kurhanik wrote: Before it got drowned out by 15 extra pages of bickering, someone noted an interesting idea in the 5 Point Guardsmen thread. It was to give all Infantry models an additional keyword, say "Horde" "Line" and "Shock", and different weapons would interact with them in different ways. Weapons that score randomized hits (1d3, 1d6, etc) would score extra hits vs units with the "Horde" keyword, etc. It would create a situation where specific weapons for anti-horde duty exist that doesn't also hurt more elite units just as much or more. You would have things like flamers that actually function for swarm duty, while Plasma would still work vs more elite units.
It wouldn't solve everything, but it would mean situations will exist where using a Horde would be a bad idea, while a more elite unit could just soak the hits. If a flamer guaranteed 2d6 hits, or 1d6+3 hits, or whatnot vs Horde units, while only dealing 1d3 hits vs Shock units, we'd get the situation where you'd want the right tool for the right job, and cannot overly depend on any one typing.
This is a fair idea, but is very gamey. You'll end up with new players wondering why a 9-model Guard squad has the "Horde" keyword while a 10-model Scout squad is not. You'd also end up gaming the edge-cases; for example, in such a system, whether or not you gave Skitarii Rangers the "Horde" keyword could either make them amazing (7 pt shock infantry YES!) or absolutely terrible (7 pt horde, what a derp).
LunarSol wrote: I don't think that's necessarily true. Improving the quality of wounds would go a long way. T5 marines would make the difference between Guard and Marines far more meaningful; T6 would be really substantial.
Yes, but at T6 you're talking about Space Marines as tough as Basilisk Artillery Tanks. Is that really what you want? And I'm not even sure that would make Marines good, because durability is of little utility without power, or so the argument goes (I tend to disagree, but 40k's lethality is so high that generally it's impossible to be truly "tough" unless you have more wounds than the enemy has damage).
Given the premise is that they're supposed to walking tanks.... maybe? T5 tacs and T6 Terms might be more appropriate though.
The other thing that might be helpful is to change the double/half for wounding on 2+/6+ to something like +/-3.
In either case I'd want to map out all the S/T values in the game and really think about how I'd want to make elite infantry stand out durability wise. Even then, Bravery checks feel like an important tool in the conversation the game could really stand to utilize better.
LunarSol wrote: I don't think that's necessarily true. Improving the quality of wounds would go a long way. T5 marines would make the difference between Guard and Marines far more meaningful; T6 would be really substantial.
Yes, but at T6 you're talking about Space Marines as tough as Basilisk Artillery Tanks. Is that really what you want? And I'm not even sure that would make Marines good, because durability is of little utility without power, or so the argument goes (I tend to disagree, but 40k's lethality is so high that generally it's impossible to be truly "tough" unless you have more wounds than the enemy has damage).
Given the premise is that they're supposed to walking tanks.... maybe? T5 tacs and T6 Terms might be more appropriate though.
The other thing that might be helpful is to change the double/half for wounding on 2+/6+ to something like +/-3.
In either case I'd want to map out all the S/T values in the game and really think about how I'd want to make elite infantry stand out durability wise. Even then, Bravery checks feel like an important tool in the conversation the game could really stand to utilize better.
So you're essentially trying to solve the Elite vs. Non-Elite problem in 40k to figure out how to make Elite infantry better bullet-soaks than the non-elite infantry? 40k's only function for infantry is still bullet-soaks, which is unfortunate.
Draco wrote: Return of templates would be better than horde keyword.
Templates have a problem though against single units, I think, in that they could only ever do 1 wound. It's the reason Vehicle Damage Chart had to exist, and the reason Monstrous Creatures were so OP. How many Leman Russes did it take to kill a AV10 Sentinel without the Vehicle Damage Chart? 3. How many Leman Russes did it take to kill a T5 unit with 0 saves? How ever many wounds it had.
You could maybe hybridize the current system, keeping a Damage stat or something, idk.
kurhanik wrote: Before it got drowned out by 15 extra pages of bickering, someone noted an interesting idea in the 5 Point Guardsmen thread. It was to give all Infantry models an additional keyword, say "Horde" "Line" and "Shock", and different weapons would interact with them in different ways. Weapons that score randomized hits (1d3, 1d6, etc) would score extra hits vs units with the "Horde" keyword, etc. It would create a situation where specific weapons for anti-horde duty exist that doesn't also hurt more elite units just as much or more. You would have things like flamers that actually function for swarm duty, while Plasma would still work vs more elite units.
It wouldn't solve everything, but it would mean situations will exist where using a Horde would be a bad idea, while a more elite unit could just soak the hits. If a flamer guaranteed 2d6 hits, or 1d6+3 hits, or whatnot vs Horde units, while only dealing 1d3 hits vs Shock units, we'd get the situation where you'd want the right tool for the right job, and cannot overly depend on any one typing.
This is a fair idea, but is very gamey. You'll end up with new players wondering why a 9-model Guard squad has the "Horde" keyword while a 10-model Scout squad is not. You'd also end up gaming the edge-cases; for example, in such a system, whether or not you gave Skitarii Rangers the "Horde" keyword could either make them amazing (7 pt shock infantry YES!) or absolutely terrible (7 pt horde, what a derp).
I would imagine it would depend somewhat on the fluff of the unit plus the mechanics of it. Horde would be more the units you drop down a ton of, like Conscripts (and quite possibly Infantry Squads), Grots, Ork Boyz, Gaunts, etc. Line units would be more disciplined units (Skitarii, Imperial Guard Veterans, Fire Warriors, Space Marine Scouts, etc). Then Shock units would be the sturdier types or highly disciplined types (or both), like most power armored units, Scions, Battlesuits and so on. Yes, there will be some edge cases, and some units thrown under one tag might need to be hit with a faq later changing its typing if it is obvious it was mistyped.
Probably a vague rule of thumb would be - 5 or less points per model = Horde, 6-11/12 Line, and 12/13+ Elite, with maybe a few exceptions along the scale.
Draco wrote: Return of templates would be better than horde keyword.
Yup, just what we need is return of slow, gamey, pointless (since most of the time it resulted in less hits than D6 roll does unless your enemy was a potato) mechanic that never made any sense (because concentrating flamer fire on carnifex and dousing it from head to toes in burning napalm equals just a tiny chance to cause a single scratch, eh?), I fully agree
If we do that, we might just grant an auto-win to any army that includes chaff because then one of the few ubiquotuos anti-horde type weapons will go from merely bad to utterly terrible leaving half of the armies in the game with zero answers for them.
Templates wont fix it, players will just max measure each model 2" apart like before and make the game worst to play. Large Blasts never got more than 5 models and small blasts you are lucky to get more than 3.
I always find myself pondering on the role of elite sci-fi infantry because I like to master sci-fi pen&paper games and like to design my worlds to be "realistic" and consistent when it comes to internal rules.
The thing that usually breaks everything is the arms race, which is a serpent eating its own tail. And this mechanics works in real life as much as in a game ruleset enviroment. Normally, infantry is squishy, but can move freely and can employ a variety of weapons to suit a large variety of tactical needs. Then you have heavy supports like Tanks and the likes, which are immune to most infantry weapons, can dish out a lor of dakka and are useful when mounting an assault against fortified position.... but they are usually useless when the enemy has air superiority. So, when something doesn't really works, better to leave it home unless you can get it working again. Think about how armor evolved. From fully plated knights because it kind of worked, to removing it because projectiles made it useless, to reintroducing a form of it in antiprojectiles vests to give a modicum of protection again.
So you have supposed elite infantry that gets munched because weapons are too overwelming, either because they are made to saturate an area with dakka, or because they manage to have at the same time rate of fire, armor penetration and high damage, that makes them work at the same time against tanks and elite infantry.
In game terms you have some possibilities in my opinion to make this work.
1) introduce a rock-paper-scissor mechanic of some sort. This is actually really "simple" and not "rule heavy" but it needs a total rework. In this case weapons should not be balaced against all targets, but will function best against certain targets and worse against others according to their various modifiers. Special abilities can help enrich this system.
2)Increase the numerical range and special rules of the game to create more nuance. Think about Infinity with their d20, their obscene amounts of special rules and about the atcual difference between a line infantry and a powered armored one or a super cyborg and the likes.
40k has an HUGE model range, but rules too simple and low numerical variance to accomodate them all. It's intentional because they want "everybody" to play in an easy manner, but eh, we know the downsides of this.
The D6 is maybe too important to remove it, but they were willing to get to high T and high S in 8th edition, even giving elite infantry light tank resilience could be something. I remember in a 40k book where the T'au said something of the like "if you encounter Space Marines, treat them like thanks, not infantry. Use the appropriate weapon".
3) Actually reduce the numerical and special rules range. By having less, you can concentrate on creating more unique roles. Think about how KIll Team is doing it. The statline of a primaris marine is the same as in 40k, but considering the range of models and weapons avalaible in KT, they feel more durable and "powerful" when in the usual 40k field, because the moment they go out they get trunched by high grade weaponry.
If you gave the big AT weapons a -1 or -2 to hit infantry, that would refocus those weapons on firing at other tanks instead of slaughtering elites. That could give elite infantry a little more breathing room on the battlefield.
Having read through this, mulled over what was posted then mulled some more I am starting to think it's time GW broke the whole traditional Marine statline. Since we no longer cap at 10 why are tanks limited to being roughly T6-T8? Why are Marines (whose armor and physique is leaps and bounds over a normal human's) only T4? It wouldn't change the way wounding works for most models, but flavor wise I feel like T5 (power armour) or T6 (terminator armour/gravis/bikes) Marines would feel more superhuman than they do at T4. Heck, that'd free up human power armor models (like both flavors of Sisters) to be T4 to make them feel a step apart from regular humans as well.
Sure this would make Plague Marines T6 (T7 in terminator armour, giving the Blightlords Nurgle's sacred number) but then they'd feel like the tanks the lore paints them as (and die to anti-tank fire about as well to boot).
Basically, we can put more granualarity into game and make elite units feel even actually elite against basic infantry weapons while retaining weakness against heavier weapons (which should be able to one-shot a Marine, or at least injure him).
I'm all for the Primaris statline being standard as well with them getting the buff they need on top of it, since the T value only really gives a modicrum of protection against anti-infantry weapons (mostly giving a boost against S5 for most models).
Now to make this work they'd need to also buff anti-tank weapons as well as monsters/vehicles to be in a higher range (say T10-12 for the majority of models). Restricting anti-tank weapons to a single shot to make them effective but not the best choice at killing more elite models/units would be good too.
Alternatively (or perhaps additonally), maybe a rule to make wounds spill over like mortal wounds if the S of a weapon is more than double a target's toughness might give the game a little more balance as well as a Melta or Autocannon punches through multiple GEQ models but only kills a single Marine or Terminator.
Regardless, the solution needs a "from the ground up" approach and a lot of proper playtesting to fix the game. Not every Marine army should look like an outing of the 10th company (10th, 11th, and 12th if you're an Exorcists Chapter player) afterall.
Another way to look at it, dont fix infantry, but make all transport better, making them all have higher toughness and wounds, T8 12 wounds for a Rhino for the same price as now, Veterans in Rhinos might be a real thing.
There are two problems with elite infantry in 40k:
1) GW doesn't want to reduce model counts to the level required to represent true elite infantry. If you make space marines T5 W3 SV2+ you might bring them closer to certain versions of the fluff, but then they can't be 15ppm anymore. That means fewer marines in a given size of army, and fewer sales of marine kits. Unless GW wants to increase the dollar price per model of elite infantry to a point where even the biggest GW apologists would be skeptical that means less revenue from their most important product line. Therefore elite infantry have a limit on how elite they can be.
2) 40k doesn't represent the kind of battle where elite infantry matter most. The advantage of a single elite soldier over a horde of basic conscripts is force concentration. Getting all the power of a whole squad in a single human-size package means a simpler chain of command, easier logistics, lower footprint, etc. On a strategic level it means a couple pods of marines can drop in and annihilate a weak point, effectively fighting a battle at 2000 points vs. 500 points without having to arrange dozens of transports. But those battles are not interesting in a tabletop game. Similarly, elite infantry would be extremely powerful in tight spaces (such as boarding a ship and fighting in tight corridors) where they can bring a lot of combat power into a tight space and the horde of conscripts can't. But, on top of the fun issue, 40k's rules don't really support that kind of game. They're designed for open-field battles where even hordes have few problems getting into combat with their full strength. Footprint is a minor factor, and all that matters is how much total firepower each side has.
GW doesn't want to reduce model counts to the level required to represent true elite infantry. If you make space marines T5 W3 SV2+ you might bring them closer to certain versions of the fluff, but then they can't be 15ppm anymore.
I think the solution for elite infantry is not for more toughness or better save, but for more wounds. Due to the nature of D6 dice you cant change the T or Save without dramatically changing the effectiveness of the unit. But wounds aren't impacted by D6 so you could theoretically increase wounds and it could make elite infantry a little better.
If the standard space marine was 2w, he should be a lot more durable and it would take heavier weapons to bring him down or high volume of fire, which fits the narrative. How that would impact other units like Primaris would be another issue.
Looking at real life 'Elites' you're looking at better training, equipment, mobility and damage output per unit. But usually highly specialised. Weirdly, I think Forge World nailed it with its Elysian army list and rules.
For most armies, the lack of proper terrain and morale rules and the fact that you can just spam effective units means the scope to develop Elite infantry to fill a niche just isn't there.
Stupidly, this is a core rules problem in an era when you can tweak a unit's stats or abilities through its dataslate without throwing other USRs out of whack. Designers now have perfect freedom to allow Elite units do anything they like without impacting on any other unit. The trouble is, the core rules won't give them room to show off Elite abilities.
Bringing in decent terrain rules that actually have an impact on Line of Sight and movement and BS modification in a defined way (not the random 'roll for this tree, oh it eats you' BS) would provide freedom to tinker with Elite abilities.
Take one of the new poster boys, Aggressors. But take the flame Gauntlet dudes, you know, the ones nobody takes. But if you gave them an ability on their dataslate that allowed them to burn down forests or set fire to buildings thereby turning them into dangerous terrain, you've just given them a niche.
Peregrine wrote: Similarly, elite infantry would be extremely powerful in tight spaces (such as boarding a ship and fighting in tight corridors) where they can bring a lot of combat power into a tight space and the horde of conscripts can't. .
So some kind of funky Marine in Space thing then eh?
From the view of a longtime GK player, there are 2 primary things hurting elite infantry right now:
1. The 8th ed AP/SV system. Before, when elite models had a 2+ save, they could survive 5/6 of small arms shots directed at them. Terminators used to laugh at heavy bolters and heavy flamers; now they are a credible threat. Up until the beginning of 7th, there wasn’t a lot that was ideal to get through good armor saves. Additionally, elite infantry had the tools to kill other elites: power weapons. Ranged weapons that ignored all armor were rare outside of plasma/melta. I’d argue that the very beginning of 6th was one of the few good times to be a terminator in 40k; power weapons got AP values and grav hadn’t shown up yet. But with AP-1 affecting everyone now, medium grade weapons that are commonly found in most armies wreck elites, vehicles, and light infantry alike.
2. Elite infantry tend to be specialized a little too much. A GK power armored marine puts out a lot of damage, which he pays for...but he dies like any other space marine. Harlequins are even better examples of the glass cannon. On the other hand, “tough” units like terminators pay for durability but put out so little damage that they can be ignored. IMO, Custodes are doing fine precisely because while expensive they put out elite-level damage but also are tough enough to survive under fire (the bikes are perhaps the perfect 40k unit).
Peregrine's analysis seems spot on: the idea that the battlefield for elite infantry is not a literal field battle. It'd be like seeing the Spetznaz used as tankodesantniki at Kursk.
There are other ideas, too, but they're mostly marine-centric (e.g. +1 toughness on terminators). But I'm talking about other elite infantry as well: crisis suits, Lychguard, etc. I think giving them a niche is hard with the simplified rules (other posters have mentioned this too) and increasing toughness seems to throw things out of whack a bit I think.
I'm confident GW will find a solution, but it may require a restructuring or years of work (or both). Custodes come close to being "really good elite infantry" but I still put them in the category of "just not quite good enough" and they're already pushing the boundaries of what I'd consider infantry: more well armoured than a tank, better invulnerable saves than a Knight, and as tough as some vehicles.
Peregrine wrote: There are two problems with elite infantry in 40k:
1) GW doesn't want to reduce model counts to the level required to represent true elite infantry. If you make space marines T5 W3 SV2+ you might bring them closer to certain versions of the fluff, but then they can't be 15ppm anymore. That means fewer marines in a given size of army, and fewer sales of marine kits. Unless GW wants to increase the dollar price per model of elite infantry to a point where even the biggest GW apologists would be skeptical that means less revenue from their most important product line. Therefore elite infantry have a limit on how elite they can be.
2) 40k doesn't represent the kind of battle where elite infantry matter most. The advantage of a single elite soldier over a horde of basic conscripts is force concentration. Getting all the power of a whole squad in a single human-size package means a simpler chain of command, easier logistics, lower footprint, etc. On a strategic level it means a couple pods of marines can drop in and annihilate a weak point, effectively fighting a battle at 2000 points vs. 500 points without having to arrange dozens of transports. But those battles are not interesting in a tabletop game. Similarly, elite infantry would be extremely powerful in tight spaces (such as boarding a ship and fighting in tight corridors) where they can bring a lot of combat power into a tight space and the horde of conscripts can't. But, on top of the fun issue, 40k's rules don't really support that kind of game. They're designed for open-field battles where even hordes have few problems getting into combat with their full strength. Footprint is a minor factor, and all that matters is how much total firepower each side has.
I think you have glanced off (if not hit squarely) the real root of the problem here, and it has nothing to do with stat lines or point cost imbalances. The real issue is that most of us are playing on fairly open boards. For this game to make sense as written you need three or four times more terrain than most of us are actually using. We've all seen the boards GW uses when they're setting up art-shots, I think they think that's the sort of setup we should actually be playing on.
Also, they really need to do away with true LOS rules. I should not be able to fire my Captain's Bolt Gun over the heads of the Marines in front of him just because he has his sword up in the air.
It'd be like seeing the Spetznaz used as tankodesantniki at Kursk.
Didn't they actually try that durning the first chechen war, the one that Russia lost?
I think we have two problems in w40k. People wanting for armies to feel like fluff. Which will never happen, because we would have to have tacticals destroy regiments of IG with tank support. The other thing is GW over pricing stuff on the base that the unit can hypotheticly do something, if the opponent lets you do it, both players play using no tactics other then rush the middle etc. Then we end up with stuff like GK or marines costing as much as they do, or on the flip side of things Eldar reapers costing as much as they do, because GW thinks people are going to take one unit of 3, "because there is so much other cool stuff in the codex".
IMO what GW testers should do is to build pre made armies that work first, and later work on how the stuff should be costed in. I know people dislike limiations, but it is, IMO, a better thing to have 12-15 working lists at 2000pts, even if you are forced to play in a specific way, then having 2-3 lists that are soups and having whole codex of units that will never see play because IG+custodes is the best marine type of army out there.
And they can easily do it through codex specific detachments, or even pre build detachments. Lets say an army bought unit by unit costs 2500pts, but if you buy a specific detachment it costs only 2000pts. Then marines and many other armies would get better, at the same time it would remove the problem of inter codex combos, because a "normal" sized army wouldn't be able to play all the units needed to get the discount detachment and some other powerful detachment.
It'd be like seeing the Spetznaz used as tankodesantniki at Kursk.
Didn't they actually try that durning the first chechen war, the one that Russia lost?
I think we have two problems in w40k. People wanting for armies to feel like fluff. Which will never happen, because we would have to have tacticals destroy regiments of IG with tank support. The other thing is GW over pricing stuff on the base that the unit can hypotheticly do something, if the opponent lets you do it, both players play using no tactics other then rush the middle etc. Then we end up with stuff like GK or marines costing as much as they do, or on the flip side of things Eldar reapers costing as much as they do, because GW thinks people are going to take one unit of 3, "because there is so much other cool stuff in the codex".
IMO what GW testers should do is to build pre made armies that work first, and later work on how the stuff should be costed in. I know people dislike limiations, but it is, IMO, a better thing to have 12-15 working lists at 2000pts, even if you are forced to play in a specific way, then having 2-3 lists that are soups and having whole codex of units that will never see play because IG+custodes is the best marine type of army out there.
And they can easily do it through codex specific detachments, or even pre build detachments. Lets say an army bought unit by unit costs 2500pts, but if you buy a specific detachment it costs only 2000pts. Then marines and many other armies would get better, at the same time it would remove the problem of inter codex combos, because a "normal" sized army wouldn't be able to play all the units needed to get the discount detachment and some other powerful detachment.
I think 7th edition literally had all the stuff you were asking for (formations were basically pre-built armies that gave you discounts if you filled them out in some cases) and it was an utter disaster.
Formation idea is wonderful, GW didnt balance them well.
If formations where balanced we wouldnt have seen the crap that we did see in 7th, they were and still are an amazing idea, just like points are an amazing idea, but GW didnt balance them well, dont blame the paints/model for a badly painted model, blame the painter.
Amishprn86 wrote: Formation idea is wonderful, GW didnt balance them well.
If formations where balanced we wouldnt have seen the crap that we did see in 7th, they were and still are an amazing idea, just like points are an amazing idea, but GW didnt balance them well, dont blame the paints/model for a badly painted model, blame the painter.
You could say this about literally anything though. I could say "the current non-formation structure we have is fine, just badly implemented." That's a non-statement. It's like saying "The world is 100% perfect in every way, just badly implemented."
Amishprn86 wrote: Formation idea is wonderful, GW didnt balance them well.
If formations where balanced we wouldnt have seen the crap that we did see in 7th, they were and still are an amazing idea, just like points are an amazing idea, but GW didnt balance them well, dont blame the paints/model for a badly painted model, blame the painter.
You could say this about literally anything though. I could say "the current non-formation structure we have is fine, just badly implemented." That's a non-statement. It's like saying "The world is 100% perfect in every way, just badly implemented."
You know what i mean.... formations are an option to have a fluffy army based of the idea's of that army and you gain a bonus for doing so. The mix factions for all isnt a good idea IMO, i'd rather see an Ally system like AoS.
And that is also a valid view, if you think some things in 8th are good but done poorly, then talk about how they can better balance them, isnt that the point of these discussions?
This has come up repeatedly, and I think its always wrongly pursued.
The issue with a Marine or Terminator over a Guardsmen isn't that T4/3+ or T4/2+ save doesn't compare with T3/5+ save - but that a boltgun is a crap take for 13 points compared with 3+ lasguns.
Lets shoot some Fire Warriors.
Guardsmen: 3*1/2*1/2*1/2=0.375 dead Tau.
Marine: 1*2/3*2/3*1/2=0.222 dead Tau.
A Terminator is worse. You get twice the shooting as the marine, so 0.444 dead Tau, but you cost 3 times the points.
Now okay the Terminator gets 2 punches with a power fist - but again, for around 40 points (not sure what it all is after CA, you never see them) this kind of sucks against a lot of targets. Guardsmen are for instance about as good as terminators against a DE Ravager - the fists only win vs T6 and up. Guardsmen are considerably better versus basic infantry.
So even before we get on to the fact high AP, D2 damage weapons are handed out far too cheaply and as a result are far too efficient against these targets, the flaw is that they don't do enough damage.
Marines are Tac units, they are rules/stats bloat, thats the problem, why take a unit that is good at 3 thing but cost 2x the points when you can ignore a part of the game to save large amounts of points to be good at 1 roll?
The sad thing is, many units are multi-purpose and under preform b.c of it or are over costed and can be fix, but NOT by points, but rules changes.
Imagine if all bikers had Hit and run, just a keyword for Bike uits, they can Fallback shoot and charge, i bet every army now would take them at current points.
Or if terminator armor has -1 to wound always, now those Lasguns dont hurt so much.
Amishprn86 wrote: Terminators honestly needs a rule that they ignore 1 point of AP, that way HF, HB, BR, etc.. they still have 2+ saves.
Generally speaking there's a lot of value in AP resistance as an alternative to Invul.
After taking a nap and looking into it more, i would rather have Terminators be -1 to wound vs anything S5 or lower.
I definitely think the biggest quirk with the current system is how wildly to wound rolls swing in the S4/T4 area. That spot needs some room to breathe.
Amishprn86 wrote: Terminators honestly needs a rule that they ignore 1 point of AP, that way HF, HB, BR, etc.. they still have 2+ saves.
SoT basically have that via "All is Dust" and they're still called bad (because anti-tank weapons nuke them). Basically you can't win, Terminators will "always" be bad.
Or just make them appropriately costed for a game with dissy cannons in it. If marines are gonna die like grots, you can't charge much for them. Enter the power armor horde. If you don't like that, you've got a LOT of weapons to change.
Martel732 wrote: Or just make them appropriately costed for a game with dissy cannons in it. If marines are gonna die like grots, you can't charge much for them. Enter the power armor horde. If you don't like that, you've got a LOT of weapons to change.
Many multishot + multidamage weapons in the game are too cheap. It is a huge problem for primaris, but it is bad design in general, as such weapons are pretty decent against all targets, they're no-brainer choices.
I know my lists have tons of autocannon equivalents now. Or battle cannons. I can't rely on lascannons because of all the Xeno invulns and quantum shields. But I can 2 damage almost everything to death and those that I can't, get capt smash or the libby dead to the face.
Martel732 wrote: I know my lists have tons of autocannon equivalents now. Or battle cannons. I can't rely on lascannons because of all the Xeno invulns and quantum shields. But I can 2 damage almost everything to death
Right. This is bad design. It is fine for some versatile weapons to exist, but they should pay for that versatility. Otherwise everyone will just take those over more specialised variants, and the game loses a lot of its depth.
It's not just the weapons. Xenos have SO MANY invulns that it really makes taking a large AP weapon risky. Large AP is primarily anti-imperium. I've basically banished lascannons and melta from my lists entirely because of Xenos. My target AP is -2. Paying for more is a waste far too often. I'm not sure I like that meta, either.
Amishprn86 wrote: Formation idea is wonderful, GW didnt balance them well.
If formations where balanced we wouldnt have seen the crap that we did see in 7th, they were and still are an amazing idea, just like points are an amazing idea, but GW didnt balance them well, dont blame the paints/model for a badly painted model, blame the painter.
Formations are a great example of why GW doesn't make a good game from a balance perspective. Formations were a great idea - you exchanged flexibility for rules for your army overall or you could take a specialist group that was good at a single task. The problem came from GW ignoring obviously OP combinations like the Aspect Host. But instead of putting effort into balancing things for example limiting how many of each Aspect could be in each Host they decided to make 8th. So now you have a different set of problems that GW will likely just replace rather than fix.
Though I don't have a solution at the top of my head, the issue to me is that since i started playing back in 5th is that fire power has increased exponentially and basic infantry durability has been either static or gotten worse. It used to take a decent amount of fire power to down a vehicle or kill a squad of MEQ. Now it takes nearly nothing to kill either, so the only thing worth taking is the hardest hitting units or chaff.
Well, because you can mess with Terminators in perfect isolation, now, why not give them some real stand out stuff?
What about these?
Augmented Strength: In the fight phase, all wound rolls of 6 cause a mortal wound in addition to normal damage.
Unrivalled Protection: This unit has a 1+ armour save. (I was going to suggest going back to the old 3+ on 2d6 for this rule but it'd mean rolling for each model separately for each save. I don't mind this but it could slow things down a lot for termie heavy armies)
Banville wrote: Well, because you can mess with Terminators in perfect isolation, now, why not give them some real stand out stuff?
What about these?
Augmented Strength: In the fight phase, all wound rolls of 6 cause a mortal wound in addition to normal damage.
Unrivalled Protection: This unit has a 1+ armour save. (I was going to suggest going back to the old 3+ on 2d6 for this rule but it'd mean rolling for each model separately for each save. I don't mind this but it could slow things down a lot for termie heavy armies)
Just accept their crapiness and charge less. That's the best buff in the game. Getting cheaper. You get more bodies, more table coverage, more guns. Stormbolters are good. Power fists are okay. 2+ is good. Just what they charge for the package is not good. Make tac marines and assault marines 10 pts and terminators 25 pts, and a lot of problems go away.
Martel732 wrote: Or just make them appropriately costed for a game with dissy cannons in it. If marines are gonna die like grots, you can't charge much for them. Enter the power armor horde. If you don't like that, you've got a LOT of weapons to change.
The Black Tide is basically the Horde Marine build, and it still dies like Grots on a Space Hulk infested with Genestealers and Daemons.
I mean it's okay in casual metas, but if you have a bit of hard crunch rolling around your meta like some kind of malignant star, then it's going to feel the pain.
Marines definitely need a rework from the ground up. Extra weapons help, but even with an extra point of toughness (which would only reduce how many wounds they take from S5 (wounding on 4s) and S8-9 (which would only wound on 3s instead of 2s) they could still end up just as screwed over against a Guard or Tau gunline due to the volume of fire they're facing. You could stack a list of change on them, say they're 20 points each and I'm positive someone would argue that they're still worthless.
One thing that might mitigate this is changing the role of units inside of a codex. Scouts shouldn't basically be diet Marines, but rather bring options/wargear than regular Marines don't. Shotguns and sniper rifles are good examples of this, and taking away bolters would help to keep the Marine chaffe unit from stepping on the toes of the Tacticals themselves. Giving out combat knives to all the Marines standard would help a lot too (2 attacks standard would help them feel stronger, even if you don't throw them into melee since 10 models would be throwing out 20 attacks making regular Marines able to fight off hordes in melee, you know, like they do in the lore. I'd say give them to the Primaris would work too since they're even more easilly out numbered, giving them a reasonable volume of attacks would go a long way to making Marines feel like a true TAC army with decent shooting and decent melee instead of decent shooting and pants melee).
Sternguard should come with a chainsword standard since they're basically Tacticals + fancy gun, the least they can be is Tacticals +1 all around. Vanguard Vets should come standard with bolters (or perhaps an assault version of the bolter, like Sternguard have)and the option for combi-weapons in addition to their chainswords to make them feel more like an elite head hunting unit.
Reivers need -1 on their knives to make melee an option for them beyond a moment of opportunity when you're not shooting targets with their bolters.
I could go on and on, but I feel like each unit needs it's own fix, and it has to do with balancing the weaker units in the codex with the more elite ones so the chaffe isn't always the better choice. Part of this is CP needs to move away from being based on the list you're playing. I argued PL since elite armies can end up with more PL than a horde, but to make it more match play centric, 1 CP per 250 points would give each player the same number of points to start with which would go a long way to balancing horde versus elite in that game. Limit CP regenerating relics to once per game to balance them more and the spamming of cheap troops should stop being as attractive for CP farming at least.
And while lore will never be 100% on the table, it should definitely inform the way stats and rules work for the army. I'm not saying we should get crazy (I mean if you wanted to argue it, every Marine should hit on 2+, come with a chainsword or knife standard, have at least 2 attacks and wounds (3 for Primaris and vets) base, be T/S5 (T6 for Terminators and Plague Marines and T7 for Plague Marines in Terminator armour), a 5+ to ignore wounds (4+ for Plague Marines) and the ability to kill things as they die (only to be boosted by characters or standards and really boosted by both), but if a unit is shown as a BAMF then it should feel at least a little like a BAMF on the table instead of something you groan about putting into your list.
Marines also need better stratagems (where's our Vortex grenade? Holy Orbs of Antioch? Ect). More chapter specific ones would be nice too, but that's something I feel every army wants: more stuff that they're dudes can do specifically over other armies.
Amishprn86 wrote: Formation idea is wonderful, GW didnt balance them well.
If formations where balanced we wouldnt have seen the crap that we did see in 7th, they were and still are an amazing idea, just like points are an amazing idea, but GW didnt balance them well, dont blame the paints/model for a badly painted model, blame the painter.
Formations are a great example of why GW doesn't make a good game from a balance perspective. Formations were a great idea - you exchanged flexibility for rules for your army overall or you could take a specialist group that was good at a single task. The problem came from GW ignoring obviously OP combinations like the Aspect Host. But instead of putting effort into balancing things for example limiting how many of each Aspect could be in each Host they decided to make 8th. So now you have a different set of problems that GW will likely just replace rather than fix.
Bespoke unit lists with unique bonuses are just kind of a balance nightmare in general. Too many variables to manage and too much stuff to effectively revist. It's the same reason that PP went from each caster having their own theme to breaking factions down into more generic sub factions in MK3.
8th's bespoke rules fit into two categories: unique and general.
And what makes it "fun" is a lot of rules that look unique, are just a general mechanic given a different name (like every method we have for putting stuff in reserves as an example, though Tau actually put that to good use by using Manta Strike based suits as a specific restriction for one strategem).
So while the unique rules are a frightful pain at times, I've noticed that most of them are on characters and not on general units.
Amishprn86 wrote: Formation idea is wonderful, GW didnt balance them well.
If formations where balanced we wouldnt have seen the crap that we did see in 7th, they were and still are an amazing idea, just like points are an amazing idea, but GW didnt balance them well, dont blame the paints/model for a badly painted model, blame the painter.
Formations are a great example of why GW doesn't make a good game from a balance perspective. Formations were a great idea - you exchanged flexibility for rules for your army overall or you could take a specialist group that was good at a single task. The problem came from GW ignoring obviously OP combinations like the Aspect Host. But instead of putting effort into balancing things for example limiting how many of each Aspect could be in each Host they decided to make 8th. So now you have a different set of problems that GW will likely just replace rather than fix.
Bespoke unit lists with unique bonuses are just kind of a balance nightmare in general. Too many variables to manage and too much stuff to effectively revist. It's the same reason that PP went from each caster having their own theme to breaking factions down into more generic sub factions in MK3.
I'm not arguing that it's easy but they very clearly didn't even try. That's what annoys me about things. They didn't even try to balance a system with so much potential they just binned it.
ClockworkZion wrote: 8th's bespoke rules fit into two categories: unique and general.
And what makes it "fun" is a lot of rules that look unique, are just a general mechanic given a different name (like every method we have for putting stuff in reserves as an example, though Tau actually put that to good use by using Manta Strike based suits as a specific restriction for one strategem).
So while the unique rules are a frightful pain at times, I've noticed that most of them are on characters and not on general units.
I think there's room for cleanup, but generally yes, I agree its nice having different names for the same thing based on fluff.
I was referring to the formation style bespoke army build things. Those quickly get out of hand and rarely suffer a fate beyond "useless" and "completely broken" in any game system I've played.
Amishprn86 wrote: Formation idea is wonderful, GW didnt balance them well.
If formations where balanced we wouldnt have seen the crap that we did see in 7th, they were and still are an amazing idea, just like points are an amazing idea, but GW didnt balance them well, dont blame the paints/model for a badly painted model, blame the painter.
Formations are a great example of why GW doesn't make a good game from a balance perspective. Formations were a great idea - you exchanged flexibility for rules for your army overall or you could take a specialist group that was good at a single task. The problem came from GW ignoring obviously OP combinations like the Aspect Host. But instead of putting effort into balancing things for example limiting how many of each Aspect could be in each Host they decided to make 8th. So now you have a different set of problems that GW will likely just replace rather than fix.
Bespoke unit lists with unique bonuses are just kind of a balance nightmare in general. Too many variables to manage and too much stuff to effectively revist. It's the same reason that PP went from each caster having their own theme to breaking factions down into more generic sub factions in MK3.
I'm not arguing that it's easy but they very clearly didn't even try. That's what annoys me about things. They didn't even try to balance a system with so much potential they just binned it.
This ^, we saw some like DE that cave +1 to nightfight rule (even tho its only a 50/50 chance to have NF for turn one only) and then you have SM, Tau, etc.. ones where they were completely OP, Skyhammer Assault, Riptide Wing etc...
Banville wrote: Well, because you can mess with Terminators in perfect isolation, now, why not give them some real stand out stuff?
What about these?
Augmented Strength: In the fight phase, all wound rolls of 6 cause a mortal wound in addition to normal damage.
Unrivalled Protection: This unit has a 1+ armour save. (I was going to suggest going back to the old 3+ on 2d6 for this rule but it'd mean rolling for each model separately for each save. I don't mind this but it could slow things down a lot for termie heavy armies)
Just accept their crapiness and charge less. That's the best buff in the game. Getting cheaper. You get more bodies, more table coverage, more guns. Stormbolters are good. Power fists are okay. 2+ is good. Just what they charge for the package is not good. Make tac marines and assault marines 10 pts and terminators 25 pts, and a lot of problems go away.
And Marines really need access to AutoCannons on the basic infantry. They used to be able to take them, no idea why that changed.
I'm not actually sure that basic Marines need to get cheaper, but they definitely shouldn't be paying more than Guard for the same special/heavy weapons. Yes those guns are more efficient but you're already paying for everything that makes that true when you buy the Marine.
And there is no way that GravCannons and MultiMeltas should cost more than LasCannons and Plasma Cannons.
The Newman wrote: And Marines really need access to AutoCannons on the basic infantry. They used to be able to take them, no idea why that changed.
I'm not actually sure that basic Marines need to get cheaper, but they definitely shouldn't be paying more than Guard for the same special/heavy weapons. Yes those guns are more efficient but you're already paying for everything that makes that true when you buy the Marine.
And there is no way that GravCannons and MultiMeltas should cost more than LasCannons and Plasma Cannons.
The autocannons were all stolen by Chaos during the Heresy obviously.
The Newman wrote: And Marines really need access to AutoCannons on the basic infantry. They used to be able to take them, no idea why that changed.
I'm not actually sure that basic Marines need to get cheaper, but they definitely shouldn't be paying more than Guard for the same special/heavy weapons. Yes those guns are more efficient but you're already paying for everything that makes that true when you buy the Marine.
And there is no way that GravCannons and MultiMeltas should cost more than LasCannons and Plasma Cannons.
The autocannons were all stolen by Chaos during the Heresy obviously.
Why would Chaos steal the Autocannons when the Reaper ACs they already had were twice as good for the same points?
The Newman wrote: And Marines really need access to AutoCannons on the basic infantry. They used to be able to take them, no idea why that changed.
I'm not actually sure that basic Marines need to get cheaper, but they definitely shouldn't be paying more than Guard for the same special/heavy weapons. Yes those guns are more efficient but you're already paying for everything that makes that true when you buy the Marine.
And there is no way that GravCannons and MultiMeltas should cost more than LasCannons and Plasma Cannons.
The autocannons were all stolen by Chaos during the Heresy obviously.
Why would Chaos steal the Autocannons when the Reaper ACs they already had were twice as good for the same points?
Because they knew they wouldn't get access to Razorbacks and didn't want the loyalists to have Autocannon Razorbacks.
Ork-en Man wrote: If you gave the big AT weapons a -1 or -2 to hit infantry, that would refocus those weapons on firing at other tanks instead of slaughtering elites. That could give elite infantry a little more breathing room on the battlefield.
That´s a good idea.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
greyknight12 wrote: From the view of a longtime GK player, there are 2 primary things hurting elite infantry right now:
1. The 8th ed AP/SV system. Before, when elite models had a 2+ save, they could survive 5/6 of small arms shots directed at them. Terminators used to laugh at heavy bolters and heavy flamers; now they are a credible threat. Up until the beginning of 7th, there wasn’t a lot that was ideal to get through good armor saves. Additionally, elite infantry had the tools to kill other elites: power weapons. Ranged weapons that ignored all armor were rare outside of plasma/melta. I’d argue that the very beginning of 6th was one of the few good times to be a terminator in 40k; power weapons got AP values and grav hadn’t shown up yet. But with AP-1 affecting everyone now, medium grade weapons that are commonly found in most armies wreck elites, vehicles, and light infantry alike.
2. Elite infantry tend to be specialized a little too much. A GK power armored marine puts out a lot of damage, which he pays for...but he dies like any other space marine. Harlequins are even better examples of the glass cannon. On the other hand, “tough” units like terminators pay for durability but put out so little damage that they can be ignored. IMO, Custodes are doing fine precisely because while expensive they put out elite-level damage but also are tough enough to survive under fire (the bikes are perhaps the perfect 40k unit).
Terminators from 3rd onwards don´t laugh at anything but die to small arms fire. It happens so often that it´s not funny anymore.
Ork-en Man wrote: If you gave the big AT weapons a -1 or -2 to hit infantry, that would refocus those weapons on firing at other tanks instead of slaughtering elites. That could give elite infantry a little more breathing room on the battlefield.
That´s a good idea.
That is a good idea, and there's already precedent in all of the '+1 to hit models with FLY, -1 to everything else' weapons. Although it won't help much if it doesn't get applied to all the multi-shot AP2 D2 weapons.
Ork-en Man wrote: If you gave the big AT weapons a -1 or -2 to hit infantry, that would refocus those weapons on firing at other tanks instead of slaughtering elites. That could give elite infantry a little more breathing room on the battlefield.
That´s a good idea.
That is a good idea, and there's already precedent in all of the '+1 to hit models with FLY, -1 to everything else' weapons. Although it won't help much if it doesn't get applied to all the multi-shot AP2 D2 weapons.
It'd likely get phrased "+1 to hit Vehicles or Monsters, -1 to hit to everything else" to fit the rule standard if it happened.
Which would make lascannons scary as feck on a Marine platform versus tanks. 2+ to hit, and often buffable to a 2+ to wound?
Ork-en Man wrote: If you gave the big AT weapons a -1 or -2 to hit infantry, that would refocus those weapons on firing at other tanks instead of slaughtering elites. That could give elite infantry a little more breathing room on the battlefield.
That´s a good idea.
That is a good idea, and there's already precedent in all of the '+1 to hit models with FLY, -1 to everything else' weapons. Although it won't help much if it doesn't get applied to all the multi-shot AP2 D2 weapons.
It'd likely get phrased "+1 to hit Vehicles or Monsters, -1 to hit to everything else" to fit the rule standard if it happened.
Which would make lascannons scary as feck on a Marine platform versus tanks. 2+ to hit, and often buffable to a 2+ to wound?
The whole reason why the "Fly" stuff has it is that Flyers have the -1 to be hit rule.
Not every Fly unit has the Flyer rules, mind, but there's not really any tanks that natively have a similar thing.
If, say, we made it so that Titanic vehicles or monsters had a -1 to be Wounded from weapons and things like Lascannons negated that? I could see this idea working.
Blndmage wrote: What if ti was +1 to hit Infantry, -1 to hit Vehicles and Monsters?
Edit, damm, ninja
Sorry, I used the webway to post first.
Seriously though, it sounds like a solid idea, but I feel like most anti-tank weapons would need a points bump to make them more balanced against vehicles then.
That or we need more shooting modifiers (and I don't mean army based ones but rather like KT to keep the anti-tank from being to powerful first turn (-1 for more than half range, -1 for any part obscured and suddenly they're -1 versus a vehicle on that first turn (assuming cover) but -3 against infantry (again, assuming cover) which would be huge for balancing the shooting game.
That said, it still buffs horde units too so on the flipside, perhaps if a weapon has a S over double or more a target's toughness the damage should spill over so a Lascannon could potentially punch through multiple guys if it hits, making it an anti-horde weapon (at a worse BS than anti-tank) so an army that takes them isn't screwed against a small bug Nid player or Green Tide Ork player.
Ork-en Man wrote: If you gave the big AT weapons a -1 or -2 to hit infantry, that would refocus those weapons on firing at other tanks instead of slaughtering elites. That could give elite infantry a little more breathing room on the battlefield.
That´s a good idea.
That is a good idea, and there's already precedent in all of the '+1 to hit models with FLY, -1 to everything else' weapons. Although it won't help much if it doesn't get applied to all the multi-shot AP2 D2 weapons.
It'd likely get phrased "+1 to hit Vehicles or Monsters, -1 to hit to everything else" to fit the rule standard if it happened.
Which would make lascannons scary as feck on a Marine platform versus tanks. 2+ to hit, and often buffable to a 2+ to wound?
The whole reason why the "Fly" stuff has it is that Flyers have the -1 to be hit rule.
Not every Fly unit has the Flyer rules, mind, but there's not really any tanks that natively have a similar thing.
If, say, we made it so that Titanic vehicles or monsters had a -1 to be Wounded from weapons and things like Lascannons negated that? I could see this idea working.
Not all flyers have -1 to hit, only ones with the Supersonic rule do. And there a lot of non-flyer models with fly as well, so it buffs really well against something like Wave Serpents or Inceptors.
The reason elite infantry are such garbage in 8th is purely because of the changes to AP, the wound chart, and multi wounds/damage.
The wound chart change is a big buff to T3, because they now treat S4 and S5 as the same thing. This is a big nerf to things that are supposed to be good at killing light infantry, like heavy bolters, heavy flamers, etc. This was clearly just done to make the wounding concept easier to remember, without thinking about what it does to these weapons.
The change to AP system is a massive reduction in durability to units that rely on armor saves for their durability. If you look at the math, the better armor you have the more your durability is decreased when AP is introduced. A 2+ save unit takes 100% more damage for each point of AP the wounding weapon has. A 3+ save unit takes 50% more damage per point. A 4+ is 25%, 5+ is 20%, and 6+ is 16% more damage per point. Because there are so any guns with at least 1 AP (pretty much any gun that isn't a basic infantry rifle), this means armor is not a particularly valuable stat, especially armor of 3+ or 2+.
Almost no matter how you look at it, the AP system is broken the way it is currently implemented. As an example, lets look at a heavy bolter. You would certainly think that a heavy bolter should be better at killing light infantry than it is elite infantry, which should be the job of things like plasma. Well, from a durability standpoint, a guardsmen out of cover would have to cost 7.8 points in order for a heavy bolter to kill as many points of guardsmen as it does 13 point marines. Guardsmen would have to cost 7.4 points for a heavy bolter to be just as good at killing them as it is at killing 37 point terminators (SB and power sword, their cheapest variant).
A third issue is wound/weapon damage thresholds, which are a new thing in 8th. Having 1 wound is typically better than paying for 2 wounds at the current prices, because there is a hard counter to having 2 wounds: weapons that do 2+ damage. The only counter to this on 2 wound models is FNP, as it as least lets you waste some of the 2 damage shots by reducing them down to 1, and forcing another 2 damage to finish you off. It isn't until 3 or 4 wounds that you can reliably survive 2 shots from most of the weapons in the game, and not until 5 that you can expect to survive a las cannon more than half the time, and not until 7 that you always take more than one D6 damage weapon to kill. Because pretty much all of the weapons that do 3.5 (the average of D6) or more damage are limited to 1 shot per weapon, 4 wounds is the peak of durability for infantry (i can't think of a 5 wound infantry model but might be forgetting something) and even then enough 2 damage weapons still drop them pretty effectively unless they have FNP. With the emergence of better auto cannon variants, 3 wounds can still be one-shotted by a number of weapons that have fairly high rates of fire, and there are tons of 2 damage weapons out there. The only counter to these weapons on high wound infantry is FNP, which can force them to survive an extra shot, and is why things like blight-lord terminators are actually hard to kill with 2 damage weapons.
All of this means that there is almost always a good weapon to shoot at elite infantry units, and no good weapons to shoot at light infantry.
The main way to fix this would be to increase the cost of a single wound, allow certain units to ignore points of AP, and give out more FNP.
I agree with your arguments, and the general shape of how you present them, but you're assuming GEQ is Guardsman and MEQ is Marine. If the GEQ is a Guardian or Harlequin, the numbers change a lot.
I do agree that AP is to easy to come by compared to how heavily it impacts armor saves.
Another solution might be to have models roll a save for each damage the wound would do to them. This way multi damage from weapons wouldn't roll over to other models, but they would be a lot better at killing models with less wounds than they have damage. And mathematically they'd be just as good at killing things with equal or more wounds, but in a less mathematically swingy way.
wonder if there are other ways to represent "elite" infantry, the main issue seems to be survivability, a heavy bolter will mow down anything T3/4 with a 5+ save just as easily, regardless of the "skill" of the target.
since modifying the "to hit" number gets silly, what about allowing "elite" units to make better usage of cover, or to be able to ignore a certain amount of AP (or even both)
will use Marines as the example, but what if marines could ignore the first point of AP, or enhance their save in cover by 1 pip - deciding when they are fired upon, but before the to hit & damage rolls. representing greater skill as soldiers at avoiding fire.
Same sort of rule to any models in the 10-20 point range before equipment, maybe more expensive stuff getting both effects.
Idea being to make the more expensive infantry more survivable, countering the way the game makes no account of skill of a model when they themselves are being shot at.
Personally would prefer an "is hit on" number ala Flames of War - so more skilled troops are harder to hit, then have the skill of the firing unit impact cover saves (e.g. negating a point or two of cover to represent being better shots), but no difference against troops in the open.
Bharring wrote: I agree with your arguments, and the general shape of how you present them, but you're assuming GEQ is Guardsman and MEQ is Marine. If the GEQ is a Guardian or Harlequin, the numbers change a lot.
I do agree that AP is to easy to come by compared to how heavily it impacts armor saves.
I don't really like GEQ and MEQ because there usually aren't straight equivalents. I do tend to use imperium units though, as they seem to be the most normal from a stateline perspective, whereas the other factions typically get to start breaking rules or be hyper specialized. If we balance the basic stuff, it's then easier to balance the complex.
Agreed. But I'd suggest caution in specifics, because Guardsmen are widely considered undercosted, and Marines are widely considered overcosted. If you corrected the entire game to bring GEQ/MEQ/TEQ into per-point pairity, the other GEQ is now trash and the other MEQ/TEQ is now OP.
When I think of ideal balance state, I usually start with Marines then Guard myself.
jcd386 wrote: The reason elite infantry are such garbage in 8th is purely because of the changes to AP, the wound chart, and multi wounds/damage.
The wound chart change is a big buff to T3, because they now treat S4 and S5 as the same thing. This is a big nerf to things that are supposed to be good at killing light infantry, like heavy bolters, heavy flamers, etc. This was clearly just done to make the wounding concept easier to remember, without thinking about what it does to these weapons.
The change to AP system is a massive reduction in durability to units that rely on armor saves for their durability. If you look at the math, the better armor you have the more your durability is decreased when AP is introduced. A 2+ save unit takes 100% more damage for each point of AP the wounding weapon has. A 3+ save unit takes 50% more damage per point. A 4+ is 25%, 5+ is 20%, and 6+ is 16% more damage per point. Because there are so any guns with at least 1 AP (pretty much any gun that isn't a basic infantry rifle), this means armor is not a particularly valuable stat, especially armor of 3+ or 2+.
Almost no matter how you look at it, the AP system is broken the way it is currently implemented. As an example, lets look at a heavy bolter. You would certainly think that a heavy bolter should be better at killing light infantry than it is elite infantry, which should be the job of things like plasma. Well, from a durability standpoint, a guardsmen out of cover would have to cost 7.8 points in order for a heavy bolter to kill as many points of guardsmen as it does 13 point marines. Guardsmen would have to cost 7.4 points for a heavy bolter to be just as good at killing them as it is at killing 37 point terminators (SB and power sword, their cheapest variant).
A third issue is wound/weapon damage thresholds, which are a new thing in 8th. Having 1 wound is typically better than paying for 2 wounds at the current prices, because there is a hard counter to having 2 wounds: weapons that do 2+ damage. The only counter to this on 2 wound models is FNP, as it as least lets you waste some of the 2 damage shots by reducing them down to 1, and forcing another 2 damage to finish you off. It isn't until 3 or 4 wounds that you can reliably survive 2 shots from most of the weapons in the game, and not until 5 that you can expect to survive a las cannon more than half the time, and not until 7 that you always take more than one D6 damage weapon to kill. Because pretty much all of the weapons that do 3.5 (the average of D6) or more damage are limited to 1 shot per weapon, 4 wounds is the peak of durability for infantry (i can't think of a 5 wound infantry model but might be forgetting something) and even then enough 2 damage weapons still drop them pretty effectively unless they have FNP. With the emergence of better auto cannon variants, 3 wounds can still be one-shotted by a number of weapons that have fairly high rates of fire, and there are tons of 2 damage weapons out there. The only counter to these weapons on high wound infantry is FNP, which can force them to survive an extra shot, and is why things like blight-lord terminators are actually hard to kill with 2 damage weapons.
All of this means that there is almost always a good weapon to shoot at elite infantry units, and no good weapons to shoot at light infantry.
The main way to fix this would be to increase the cost of a single wound, allow certain units to ignore points of AP, and give out more FNP.
This is all true. A big part of the problem is that most weapons were just directly converted into the new system, without giving much thought whether they served their intended purpose any more. Not that this worked in previous editions either, midstrength multishot weapons dominated then too, only in somewhat different ways. Though it is almost impossible to even design weapons that are more point efficient against guardsmen than marines under the current system. At least with Primaris marines that is technically possible. And guardsmen being undercosted affects things too.
leopard wrote: wonder if there are other ways to represent "elite" infantry, the main issue seems to be survivability, a heavy bolter will mow down anything T3/4 with a 5+ save just as easily, regardless of the "skill" of the target.
since modifying the "to hit" number gets silly, what about allowing "elite" units to make better usage of cover, or to be able to ignore a certain amount of AP (or even both)
will use Marines as the example, but what if marines could ignore the first point of AP, or enhance their save in cover by 1 pip - deciding when they are fired upon, but before the to hit & damage rolls. representing greater skill as soldiers at avoiding fire.
Same sort of rule to any models in the 10-20 point range before equipment, maybe more expensive stuff getting both effects.
Idea being to make the more expensive infantry more survivable, countering the way the game makes no account of skill of a model when they themselves are being shot at.
Personally would prefer an "is hit on" number ala Flames of War - so more skilled troops are harder to hit, then have the skill of the firing unit impact cover saves (e.g. negating a point or two of cover to represent being better shots), but no difference against troops in the open.
I think the ideal fix is to give armor two stats: save value, and AP reduction. Save value being 3+ or 4 + like we have now, and AP reduction being how many points of AP it can ignore. Everything in the marine codex would have a AP reduction of 1. This is better in my mind than increasing Marines to 2+ as it only makes them more durable against things with AP. Some units could even ignore two or three points of AP to represent very durable armor. It would also create a middle ground between current armor saves and invul saves, which seems appealing to me.
One of the super common complains is that the Boltgun went from AP5 to AP0, with the suggestion that it should have become AP-1. Personally, I feel that this is the exact wrong direction: there should be less AP out there, not more. Don't forget that almost all the small arms weapons in the game were AP5 - and such a change would mean Marines saving on a 4+ to Splinter weapons!
If you were to do a flat reduce-by-1 of the APs across the game, things might get closer. Although the true tankbuster stuff - most of what's AP-3 or better now - don't need a reduction.
I think the ideal fix is to give armor two stats: save value, and AP reduction. Save value being 3+ or 4 + like we have now, and AP reduction being how many points of AP it can ignore. Everything in the marine codex would have a AP reduction of 1. This is better in my mind than increasing Marines to 2+ as it only makes them more durable against things with AP. Some units could even ignore two or three points of AP to represent very durable armor. It would also create a middle ground between current armor saves and invul saves, which seems appealing to me.
This is needlessly complicated, they would never do this.
The problem with "AP Reduction" is you make Lasguns the only real way to touch Termies in cover. Imagine coming up to Termies in cover, and blasting them with some AP-2 goodness. They have a 2+. -2 AP becomes -1AP after reduction. +1 from cover. Termie-killer is now no better at killing Termies than a Lasgun!
A flat AP reduction just means ROF is even more king than it is now.
Bharring wrote: One of the super common complains is that the Boltgun went from AP5 to AP0, with the suggestion that it should have become AP-1. Personally, I feel that this is the exact wrong direction: there should be less AP out there, not more. Don't forget that almost all the small arms weapons in the game were AP5 - and such a change would mean Marines saving on a 4+ to Splinter weapons!
If you were to do a flat reduce-by-1 of the APs across the game, things might get closer. Although the true tankbuster stuff - most of what's AP-3 or better now - don't need a reduction.
Bharring wrote: One of the super common complains is that the Boltgun went from AP5 to AP0, with the suggestion that it should have become AP-1. Personally, I feel that this is the exact wrong direction: there should be less AP out there, not more. Don't forget that almost all the small arms weapons in the game were AP5 - and such a change would mean Marines saving on a 4+ to Splinter weapons!
If you were to do a flat reduce-by-1 of the APs across the game, things might get closer. Although the true tankbuster stuff - most of what's AP-3 or better now - don't need a reduction.
I kind of feel like they really should pay more attention to what the AoS team is doing.
Boltguns would benefit from a few of the special rules we've seen there--or hell, even just copy/pasting the rule from Galvanic Rifles(wound rolls of 6 result in AP of -1).
Bharring wrote: The problem with "AP Reduction" is you make Lasguns the only real way to touch Termies in cover. Imagine coming up to Termies in cover, and blasting them with some AP-2 goodness. They have a 2+. -2 AP becomes -1AP after reduction. +1 from cover. Termie-killer is now no better at killing Termies than a Lasgun!
A flat AP reduction just means ROF is even more king than it is now.
Well, I also think cover needs a rework. It doesn't make sense that it currently doesn't help terminators against lasguns at all, helps Marines a ton (50% damage reduction), and barely helps cultists (20% reduction).
I think it should go back to giving a 5++ cover save.
Boltguns would benefit from a few of the special rules we've seen there--or hell, even just copy/pasting the rule from Galvanic Rifles(wound rolls of 6 result in AP of -1).
Such bonus would still be more beneficial against marines than guard.
Bharring wrote: The problem with "AP Reduction" is you make Lasguns the only real way to touch Termies in cover. Imagine coming up to Termies in cover, and blasting them with some AP-2 goodness. They have a 2+. -2 AP becomes -1AP after reduction. +1 from cover. Termie-killer is now no better at killing Termies than a Lasgun!
A flat AP reduction just means ROF is even more king than it is now.
I think if they let half the units in the game ignore one point of AP, which would create two tiers of each save, and then adjusted points accordingly, giving bolters AP1 would be fine.
Boltguns would benefit from a few of the special rules we've seen there--or hell, even just copy/pasting the rule from Galvanic Rifles(wound rolls of 6 result in AP of -1).
Such bonus would still be more beneficial against marines than guard.
So what the hell do you want then? Do you think you should be able to just mow through squads with no problem?
Because that's what we had prior to this, where AP just flatout disallowed saves. Then it became all about cover and aura invulns.
leopard wrote: wonder if there are other ways to represent "elite" infantry, the main issue seems to be survivability, a heavy bolter will mow down anything T3/4 with a 5+ save just as easily, regardless of the "skill" of the target.
since modifying the "to hit" number gets silly, what about allowing "elite" units to make better usage of cover, or to be able to ignore a certain amount of AP (or even both)
will use Marines as the example, but what if marines could ignore the first point of AP, or enhance their save in cover by 1 pip - deciding when they are fired upon, but before the to hit & damage rolls. representing greater skill as soldiers at avoiding fire.
Same sort of rule to any models in the 10-20 point range before equipment, maybe more expensive stuff getting both effects.
Idea being to make the more expensive infantry more survivable, countering the way the game makes no account of skill of a model when they themselves are being shot at.
Personally would prefer an "is hit on" number ala Flames of War - so more skilled troops are harder to hit, then have the skill of the firing unit impact cover saves (e.g. negating a point or two of cover to represent being better shots), but no difference against troops in the open.
I think the ideal fix is to give armor two stats: save value, and AP reduction. Save value being 3+ or 4 + like we have now, and AP reduction being how many points of AP it can ignore. Everything in the marine codex would have a AP reduction of 1. This is better in my mind than increasing Marines to 2+ as it only makes them more durable against things with AP. Some units could even ignore two or three points of AP to represent very durable armor. It would also create a middle ground between current armor saves and invul saves, which seems appealing to me.
Its a pretty similar end result, I wouldn't make it part of the armour though, I'd make it part of the infantry - minor difference but it makes it easier to give say a marine veteran a different capability to a marine, even though the equipment is the same.
Personally would also go back to what Space Marine v1 had, and have "armoured" and "soft" targets and give weapons a different stat line against each, so you can have anti tank thats not automatically good anti elite infantry, and vice versa.
So what the hell do you want then? Do you think you should be able to just mow through squads with no problem?
Because that's what we had prior to this, where AP just flatout disallowed saves. Then it became all about cover and aura invulns.
If bolter is supposed to be a antihorde weapon, it needs more shots, not more AP. Bolt carbine/auto bolt rifle are antihorde guns. I mean they're still more point effective versus normal marines than guard, but everything is.
So what the hell do you want then? Do you think you should be able to just mow through squads with no problem?
Because that's what we had prior to this, where AP just flatout disallowed saves. Then it became all about cover and aura invulns.
If bolter is supposed to be a antihorde weapon, it needs more shots, not more AP. Bolt carbine/auto bolt rifle are antihorde guns. I mean they're still more point effective versus normal marines than guard, but everything is.
Bolters aren't antihorde weapons. Heavy Bolters are.
A situational point of AP, however, negates the nonsensical argument that yourself and others have put forward that a 5+ save on Guardsmen is "too much".
So what the hell do you want then? Do you think you should be able to just mow through squads with no problem?
Because that's what we had prior to this, where AP just flatout disallowed saves. Then it became all about cover and aura invulns.
If bolter is supposed to be a antihorde weapon, it needs more shots, not more AP. Bolt carbine/auto bolt rifle are antihorde guns. I mean they're still more point effective versus normal marines than guard, but everything is.
Bolters aren't antihorde weapons. Heavy Bolters are.
A situational point of AP, however, negates the nonsensical argument that yourself and others have put forward that a 5+ save on Guardsmen is "too much".
Bolters aren't antihorde weapons. Heavy Bolters are.
Except as it was pointed earlier in this thread, they aren't. Antihorde weapons need Strength 2, 3,4 or 6, no AP and many shots.
A situational point of AP, however, negates the nonsensical argument that yourself and others have put forward that a 5+ save on Guardsmen is "too much".
I have not made such argument. I said that guardsmen should be five point, but their stats are fine. Problem indeed that guardsmen are too hard to kill compared to the marines, but AP affects marines more than it affects guard. Thus giving more weapons AP widens the gap in favour of the guard, instead of narrowing it.
What if, and I know this is crazy, but what if Cover gave a -1-to-hit?
That would negatively impact Guard shooting more than Marine shooting. It'd make Termies in cover more durable to AP0 than Termies out of cover.
I haven't fully thought it through. And more to-hit modifiers would certainly require a the "6s always hit" rule we used to have (we should have it anyways). But I think it may be a good change.
Back to AP modifiers in general, giving Marines mini-Bladestorm doesn't sit right with me. Although if we did do a pass on AP reduction, I'd see Bladestorm going down a point of AP.
Marines are in a bad spot right now vs weapons all over the AP spectrum. It's not just anti-horde or anti-elite weapons they don't perform against.
Bharring wrote: What if, and I know this is crazy, but what if Cover gave a -1-to-hit?
That would negatively impact Guard shooting more than Marine shooting. It'd make Termies in cover more durable to AP0 than Termies out of cover.
I haven't fully thought it through. And more to-hit modifiers would certainly require a the "6s always hit" rule we used to have (we should have it anyways). But I think it may be a good change.
Back to AP modifiers in general, giving Marines mini-Bladestorm doesn't sit right with me. Although if we did do a pass on AP reduction, I'd see Bladestorm going down a point of AP.
Marines are in a bad spot right now vs weapons all over the AP spectrum. It's not just anti-horde or anti-elite weapons they don't perform against.
This is true, but typically the better a gun is at killing things the more expensive it is and the lower number of shots it has. I don't think anyone had a problem with plasma killing marines in older editions. All units should die when the appropriate weapons of the correct type are focused on them. The issue with the low AP weapons that have high rates of fire (assault cannons, for example) is that they absolutely shred marines in a way they never have before in previous editions. When you couple this with the increase in durability lighter infantry got from the wound chart and AP changes, light infantry need to cost more than they do now because they are better, or something needs to be added to heavy infantry because they are worse. The issue right now that even the worst guns are "okay" at killing marines, and all the rest are good at it, while only a few guns in the game are even decent at killing guardsmen.
I personally don't like negative hit modifiers because they effect different armies more than others based on their starting BS, which isn't something that army can really control. I'd rather cover just give a 6+ FNP or something that would reduce all damage taken by any unit in cover from any weapon (unless it ignored cover) evenly. This is the first edition where roll modifiers have really come into play, and i feel like it is a giant mistake because it is inherently difficult to balance things when a +1 or -1 for one unit is a small debuff but a giant debuff to another, and it's made worse by the fact that things are priced as if that wasn't the case.
Also, things like Plas being the ideal for killing tanks makes it feel more gakky that they kill Marines, too. Because it's the same weapon, but you didn't pick it over a Melta because you're more invested in killing Marines than vehicles, but it's still just as good at killing Marines.... It would feel less gakky if picking Plas had more of a "cost" (and I don't just mean points).
I wonder if general survivability vs shooting would make more elite units feel more elite. Like, if we gave anyone a 4+ "nope" roll to all shooting wounds, across the board. Yes, you don't change the rate at which weapons are better or what defensive statlines are better. But with shooting all told being not as deadly, would the difference in defensive stats - and in Marines' case, CC capability - change some things? I'm not saying this would be a good rule, it's just a thought experiment. Now, it alone wouldn't fix things, because somehow Guardsmen currently beat Marines in CC.
As for the negative hit modifiers affecting different armies differently, I consider that part of the goal. Making Marines handle shooting into cover better than Guardsmen (or Orkz) would be a plus, IMO.
The overheats could be more dangerous. Maybe the weapons need a load time to fire at full strenght, or can't fire at full strenght in every turn. Maybe they require coolants, which weight models carrying them down. A direct hit from a plasma at full strenght should be deadly, but what if the normal mode for plasma had the same stats as tau plasma?
At the same time GW could add real anti tank weapons, that require locking on a target, but do huge dmg.
At the same time melta could do the simiular damage without locking on, but with a much shorter range.
Sometimes I think GW just writes the rules for people to buy more models. One editions it is meltas as the best, another it is plasma, yet another grav guns are on everyone that can carry it. It doesn't look like a system, where GW knows how they want the weapons to work within given set of rules, and more like something along the lines of what weapon will the never players have problems to buy on the secondary market.
Bharring wrote: Also, things like Plas being the ideal for killing tanks makes it feel more gakky that they kill Marines, too. Because it's the same weapon, but you didn't pick it over a Melta because you're more invested in killing Marines than vehicles, but it's still just as good at killing Marines.... It would feel less gakky if picking Plas had more of a "cost" (and I don't just mean points).
I wonder if general survivability vs shooting would make more elite units feel more elite. Like, if we gave anyone a 4+ "nope" roll to all shooting wounds, across the board. Yes, you don't change the rate at which weapons are better or what defensive statlines are better. But with shooting all told being not as deadly, would the difference in defensive stats - and in Marines' case, CC capability - change some things? I'm not saying this would be a good rule, it's just a thought experiment. Now, it alone wouldn't fix things, because somehow Guardsmen currently beat Marines in CC.
As for the negative hit modifiers affecting different armies differently, I consider that part of the goal. Making Marines handle shooting into cover better than Guardsmen (or Orkz) would be a plus, IMO.
The 4+ effectively FNP across the board and it just esentially doubles everyones durability to shooting and doesn't help balance. Shooting Vehicals become worthless, Marines are still destroyed by Guard, and Zerkers will be the new Super Cheese.
The only way this might work would be to give Power armour and Terminators a FNP of 5+ and Iron hands and Death Guard get +1 to their FNP's.
That's really the only way to make marines durable in a way that doesn't just require making them less points.
Even then I'm not sure it truly helps as they still die to 2D weapons much like plauge marines do currently. Though the Primaris statline would atleast be semi functional only a year after launch.
Karol wrote: The overheats could be more dangerous. Maybe the weapons need a load time to fire at full strenght, or can't fire at full strenght in every turn. Maybe they require coolants, which weight models carrying them down. A direct hit from a plasma at full strenght should be deadly, but what if the normal mode for plasma had the same stats as tau plasma?
At the same time GW could add real anti tank weapons, that require locking on a target, but do huge dmg.
At the same time melta could do the simiular damage without locking on, but with a much shorter range.
Sometimes I think GW just writes the rules for people to buy more models. One editions it is meltas as the best, another it is plasma, yet another grav guns are on everyone that can carry it. It doesn't look like a system, where GW knows how they want the weapons to work within given set of rules, and more like something along the lines of what weapon will the never players have problems to buy on the secondary market.
Fixing plasma is as simple as having it always and only overheat on a natural roll of a 1 to hit, before rerolls. Vehicles and single model units should only take a single mortal wound, though.
Then Melta needs to probably be D6 damage, but never less than 3. The melta rule is fine.
Flamers should be 2d6 hits, but never do more hits than the number of models in the target unit, and ignore cover.
jcd386 wrote: Fixing plasma is as simple as having it always and only overheat on a natural roll of a 1 to hit, before rerolls. Vehicles and single model units should only take a single mortal wound, though.
No. It would yet again favour cheap chaff over elites. Who cares if some IG mook fries himself? They can still overcharge with impunity. But Hellblasters, well, that's one of the few good Marine units nerfed to the ground.
This thread seems to be focusing a lot on Guardsmen, Tactical Marines, and Terminators, instead of all of the other horde/elite units out there.
Once again, I'd like to note that using a "Horde", "Line Infantry" and "Elite" keyword system could help refocus lots of weapons into a better niche. Anti Horde weapons such as Heavy Bolters might be 1d6+3 hits vs Horde Units, and 3 vs Line and 1d3 vs Elite, while Flamers can strike 2d6 hits on Horde, 1d6 on Line, and 1d3 on Elite, etc. Certain abilities (FRFSRF comes to mind) could give the buff vs Horde Units as well, instead of being against everything. In the end, you would end up with a situation where you have some tools specifically tailored to fighting Hordes (Flamers, Heavy Bolters, etc), Dedicated Anti-Elite weaponry (Plasma and the like), and then jack of all trade weapons like the Autocannon and its equivalents.
Yes it would require some rebalancing, but it seems better than deciding to give Tactical Marines +1 wound, the ability to ignore ap -1, and ap -1 guns (while ignoring non Space Marine elite infantry).
jcd386 wrote: Fixing plasma is as simple as having it always and only overheat on a natural roll of a 1 to hit, before rerolls. Vehicles and single model units should only take a single mortal wound, though.
No. It would yet again favour cheap chaff over elites. Who cares if some IG mook fries himself? They can still overcharge with impunity. But Hellblasters, well, that's one of the few good Marine units nerfed to the ground.
Then let's change Infantry Squads from "mooks" to something more akin to Skitarii infantry, with appropriate point costings.
This is the part that continually gets glossed over in the rush to complain about Infantry Squads. At too high of a points value, they're just Conscript Squads with less guys at more points, shooting slightly better, and with the option to pay for some gubbins.
Then let's change Infantry Squads from "mooks" to something more akin to Skitarii infantry, with appropriate point costings.
This is the part that continually gets glossed over in the rush to complain about Infantry Squads. At too high of a points value, they're just Conscript Squads with less guys at more points, shooting slightly better, and with the option to pay for some gubbins.
Why are you spouting nonsense again? Their stats are fine, their point cost is one point too low, and there is an entire separate thread dedicated to this topic.
Also, the unit you describe exists, it is called veterans, no one just takes them because infantry squads are too cheap.
Then let's change Infantry Squads from "mooks" to something more akin to Skitarii infantry, with appropriate point costings.
This is the part that continually gets glossed over in the rush to complain about Infantry Squads. At too high of a points value, they're just Conscript Squads with less guys at more points, shooting slightly better, and with the option to pay for some gubbins.
Why are you spouting nonsense again? Their stats are fine, their point cost is one point too low, and there is an entire thread dedicated to this topic.
Then maybe you should keep your statements about it there.
Also, the unit you describe exists, it is called veterans, no one just takes them because infantry squads are too cheap.
Also because Veterans are Elites and still a 5+ save.
kurhanik wrote: This thread seems to be focusing a lot on Guardsmen, Tactical Marines, and Terminators, instead of all of the other horde/elite units out there.
Realistically, the discussion will end up centering on those since everyone and their mother thinks they're some kind of tournament wizard and thus uses those examples.
Once again, I'd like to note that using a "Horde", "Line Infantry" and "Elite" keyword system could help refocus lots of weapons into a better niche. Anti Horde weapons such as Heavy Bolters might be 1d6+3 hits vs Horde Units, and 3 vs Line and 1d3 vs Elite, while Flamers can strike 2d6 hits on Horde, 1d6 on Line, and 1d3 on Elite, etc. Certain abilities (FRFSRF comes to mind) could give the buff vs Horde Units as well, instead of being against everything. In the end, you would end up with a situation where you have some tools specifically tailored to fighting Hordes (Flamers, Heavy Bolters, etc), Dedicated Anti-Elite weaponry (Plasma and the like), and then jack of all trade weapons like the Autocannon and its equivalents.
Yes it would require some rebalancing, but it seems better than deciding to give Tactical Marines +1 wound, the ability to ignore ap -1, and ap -1 guns (while ignoring non Space Marine elite infantry).
Realistically, I think this is a bit too complex for something that could be solved by looking at units that already exist or have existed.
We could give things like Heavy Bolters or Boltguns rules where when they cause a casualty, they inflict another wound to the unit(which won't create another casualty). Flamers are in a weird spot, but they might need to be given something relating to the range they're being fired(no pun intended) from. Something like D6 at max range, 2D6 at 2/3rds range, 3D6 at 1/2 range, and 4D6 at 1/4 range.
That last bit is still complex, and I'll wholeheartedly admit that, but flamers are in a bit of a weird spot and I just don't know where to go beyond "templates again". Maybe add a bit to them where Flamers inflict a further penalty to Leadership for casualties suffered?
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Crimson wrote: If you want play Skitarii, you can do that, no need to change guard stats. (Or you could, if you didn't have your bizarre tech priest phobia.)
I'm not the one complaining about a unit which is currently devised as nothing but a cheap unit is shockingly effective at being a cheap unit.
We could give things like Heavy Bolters or Boltguns rules where when they cause a casualty, they inflict another wound to the unit(which won't create another casualty). Flamers are in a weird spot, but they might need to be given something relating to the range they're being fired(no pun intended) from. Something like D6 at max range, 2D6 at 2/3rds range, 3D6 at 1/2 range, and 4D6 at 1/4 range.
Your changes make these weapons equally better against elite targets. They are not anti horde improvements.
We could give things like Heavy Bolters or Boltguns rules where when they cause a casualty, they inflict another wound to the unit(which won't create another casualty). Flamers are in a weird spot, but they might need to be given something relating to the range they're being fired(no pun intended) from. Something like D6 at max range, 2D6 at 2/3rds range, 3D6 at 1/2 range, and 4D6 at 1/4 range.
Your changes make these weapons equally better against all targets. They are not anti horde improvements.
Yeah, well you're not getting anti-horde improvements without the weapons becoming better against all targets as well. Not without a radical redesign of how 8th works.
Also, morale penalties do make them better "anti-horde" weapons--forces people to burn CPs or ensure better placement. But hey what do I know...
Yeah, well you're not getting anti-horde improvements without the weapons becoming better against all targets as well. Not without a radical redesign of how 8th works.
Or, you know, some point adjustment to some of the cheapest units... I don't say which units, perhaps there is some other thread for that!
Then those units will cease to be "hordes" if you bump the points up.
You want expensive Infantry Squads? Buff them up to a point where they're the same value as a Skitarii. They're supposed to be the same damn thing anyways.
Kanluwen wrote: Then those units will cease to be "hordes" if you bump the points up.
You want expensive Infantry Squads? Buff them up to a point where they're the same value as a Skitarii. They're supposed to be the same damn thing anyways.
I'm sure the things you say must somehow make sense in your head. If the problem is that a thing is too resilient for its points, you have to either increase the points or decrease the resilience. You cannot increase the points and increase the resilience, that will get us nowhere.
greyknight12 wrote: From the view of a longtime GK player, there are 2 primary things hurting elite infantry right now:
1. The 8th ed AP/SV system. Before, when elite models had a 2+ save, they could survive 5/6 of small arms shots directed at them. Terminators used to laugh at heavy bolters and heavy flamers; now they are a credible threat. Up until the beginning of 7th, there wasn’t a lot that was ideal to get through good armor saves. Additionally, elite infantry had the tools to kill other elites: power weapons. Ranged weapons that ignored all armor were rare outside of plasma/melta. I’d argue that the very beginning of 6th was one of the few good times to be a terminator in 40k; power weapons got AP values and grav hadn’t shown up yet. But with AP-1 affecting everyone now, medium grade weapons that are commonly found in most armies wreck elites, vehicles, and light infantry alike.
2. Elite infantry tend to be specialized a little too much. A GK power armored marine puts out a lot of damage, which he pays for...but he dies like any other space marine. Harlequins are even better examples of the glass cannon. On the other hand, “tough” units like terminators pay for durability but put out so little damage that they can be ignored. IMO, Custodes are doing fine precisely because while expensive they put out elite-level damage but also are tough enough to survive under fire (the bikes are perhaps the perfect 40k unit).
Terminators have the same durability to AP-1 as before with the second wound compared to AP4 last edition.
In fact this is the most durable Terminators have ever been of you bothered to do the math. Outside specific situations like with the Autocannon and Battle Cannon, durability is better.
greyknight12 wrote: From the view of a longtime GK player, there are 2 primary things hurting elite infantry right now:
1. The 8th ed AP/SV system. Before, when elite models had a 2+ save, they could survive 5/6 of small arms shots directed at them. Terminators used to laugh at heavy bolters and heavy flamers; now they are a credible threat. Up until the beginning of 7th, there wasn’t a lot that was ideal to get through good armor saves. Additionally, elite infantry had the tools to kill other elites: power weapons. Ranged weapons that ignored all armor were rare outside of plasma/melta. I’d argue that the very beginning of 6th was one of the few good times to be a terminator in 40k; power weapons got AP values and grav hadn’t shown up yet. But with AP-1 affecting everyone now, medium grade weapons that are commonly found in most armies wreck elites, vehicles, and light infantry alike.
2. Elite infantry tend to be specialized a little too much. A GK power armored marine puts out a lot of damage, which he pays for...but he dies like any other space marine. Harlequins are even better examples of the glass cannon. On the other hand, “tough” units like terminators pay for durability but put out so little damage that they can be ignored. IMO, Custodes are doing fine precisely because while expensive they put out elite-level damage but also are tough enough to survive under fire (the bikes are perhaps the perfect 40k unit).
Terminators have the same durability to AP-1 as before with the second wound compared to AP4 last edition.
In fact this is the most durable Terminators have ever been of you bothered to do the math. Outside specific situations like with the Autocannon and Battle Cannon, durability is better.
I agree with this. Termie durability is fine. I have no problem with stuff dying to quality or sufficient quantity of fire. Terminators in general don't hit hard enough, and suck at clearing hordes. They don't actually DO anything. Which is why I think Elite infantry, not just Terminators, need to be able to bring something else to the party rather than just kill things or not get killed. I've said it before but allow them to interact with terrain, allow them to 'suppress' enemy movement. Give some elite units the old version of Overwatch. I think we need to think outside the well-worn dichotomy of kill or be killed and see how we can open up niches for elite units.
Banville wrote: I agree with this. Termie durability is fine. I have no problem with stuff dying to quality or sufficient quantity of fire. Terminators in general don't hit hard enough, and suck at clearing hordes. They don't actually DO anything. Which is why I think Elite infantry, not just Terminators, need to be able to bring something else to the party rather than just kill things or not get killed. I've said it before but allow them to interact with terrain, allow them to 'suppress' enemy movement. Give some elite units the old version of Overwatch. I think we need to think outside the well-worn dichotomy of kill or be killed and see how we can open up niches for elite units.
Short of a hard redesign I don't see that happening.
Its much easier to just buff Terminator shooting and give them more attacks.
Same for Meganobs.
Banville wrote: I agree with this. Termie durability is fine. I have no problem with stuff dying to quality or sufficient quantity of fire. Terminators in general don't hit hard enough, and suck at clearing hordes. They don't actually DO anything. Which is why I think Elite infantry, not just Terminators, need to be able to bring something else to the party rather than just kill things or not get killed. I've said it before but allow them to interact with terrain, allow them to 'suppress' enemy movement. Give some elite units the old version of Overwatch. I think we need to think outside the well-worn dichotomy of kill or be killed and see how we can open up niches for elite units.
Short of a hard redesign I don't see that happening.
Its much easier to just buff Terminator shooting and give them more attacks.
Same for Meganobs.
Possibly give them some movement ability too.
It wouldn't need a hard reboot. Watch: Suppressing Fire: If this unit has not attacked in its own Shooting Phase, it may instead make an out of turn shooting attack, as if it were its own shooting phase, against a single enemy unit that moves or advances after the move or advance has been completed.
There. Not too powerful and doesn't require any messing with core rules.
Again: Firestorm: This unit may target any terrain or scenery placed as part of the battlefield set up (not the original table surface or gaming mat, let's not play silly buggers) during its shooting phase. For the rest of the game, any unit that spends any portion of its turn in or passing through the terrain or scenery takes d6 mortal wounds.
Again: Deadly Riposte: In the fight phase count the number of attacks that fail to cause any damage to this unit (including misses). That number of attacks may be added to this unit's attacks during its next turn to fight. This may carry over from one combat into another. (Don't give this last one to Wraithguard, obviously but Howling Banshees would love it)
A designer should be able to take an under-performing Elite unit from any army, read its fluff and come up with an interesting rule for its dataslate without recourse to messing with points or wounds or toughness, whilst also making the game more interesting.
jcd386 wrote: Fixing plasma is as simple as having it always and only overheat on a natural roll of a 1 to hit, before rerolls. Vehicles and single model units should only take a single mortal wound, though.
You can't have a weapon malfunctioning every time a Hellblaster Squad shoots. Weapons can't be that unreliable!
Finally an anti hore weapon that works better against multi model units.
The problem here is all of the fairly elite infantry units that start at 5 and bump up to 10 or 20. Your proposal would mean a fully kitted 10 man Tactical Marine Squad would get hit with 10 attacks just as much as the Guardsmen, and things like Rubric Marines can (correct me if I am wrong, I don't own the codex) take blocks of 20 elite infantry - suddenly that single flamer is Assault 20 vs this unit. So basically you disincentivize people from using big units and all you see are minimum sized squads to avoid being hit over the face with an absurd number of attacks.
Its why I was suggesting instead using keywords to differentiate between Horde, Line Infantry, and Elites (and if Vehicles and Monstrous Creatures need a tag, they would probably also be Elite with few exceptions). That way you CAN specifically tailor weapons for being good against Hordes and worse against other units.
To use the example of the Flamer again, it would have "attacks: *" and then in its text "This weapon does 2d6 (or 1d6+3 if you prefer) attacks vs Horde units, 1d6 attacks vs Line units, and 1d3 attacks vs Elite units. Boom, you have a weapon that specifically in its rules is more effective vs chaff than elites, without killing the ability for elite units to build up their numbers. A Flamer would still deal 1d3 attacks vs a Tactical Marine Squad, whether it is at 5 or 10 strong.
I'll admit, this is complicated, and would take some reworking, and require GW to sit down and decide WHAT is a Horde unit, or a Line unit, or an Elite unit. My rule of thumb would be "5 points or cheaper = Horde, 6-10/11 = Line, and 11/12+ = Elite", but then again, that would make Ork Boyz, the poster boyz of the Horde playstyle, Line infantry - so some exceptions would definitely have to be made.
The end result though, would be a system where when designing a new weapon, GW can go "ok, we want this to be decent against Hordes, and weak vs Elites, so how about we make its text note "this weapon makes 1 attack vs Elites and Line Infantry, and 3 vs Horde" - for fluff reason, it could be more of a suppressing fire weapon - since Line and Elites are more disciplined and generally fewer in number, the weapon has less option to hit anything compared to this tightly packed swarm.
Finally an anti hore weapon that works better against multi model units.
The problem here is all of the fairly elite infantry units that start at 5 and bump up to 10 or 20. Your proposal would mean a fully kitted 10 man Tactical Marine Squad would get hit with 10 attacks just as much as the Guardsmen, and things like Rubric Marines can (correct me if I am wrong, I don't own the codex) take blocks of 20 elite infantry - suddenly that single flamer is Assault 20 vs this unit. So basically you disincentivize people from using big units and all you see are minimum sized squads to avoid being hit over the face with an absurd number of attacks.
Its why I was suggesting instead using keywords to differentiate between Horde, Line Infantry, and Elites (and if Vehicles and Monstrous Creatures need a tag, they would probably also be Elite with few exceptions). That way you CAN specifically tailor weapons for being good against Hordes and worse against other units.
To use the example of the Flamer again, it would have "attacks: *" and then in its text "This weapon does 2d6 (or 1d6+3 if you prefer) attacks vs Horde units, 1d6 attacks vs Line units, and 1d3 attacks vs Elite units. Boom, you have a weapon that specifically in its rules is more effective vs chaff than elites, without killing the ability for elite units to build up their numbers. A Flamer would still deal 1d3 attacks vs a Tactical Marine Squad, whether it is at 5 or 10 strong.
I'll admit, this is complicated, and would take some reworking, and require GW to sit down and decide WHAT is a Horde unit, or a Line unit, or an Elite unit. My rule of thumb would be "5 points or cheaper = Horde, 6-10/11 = Line, and 11/12+ = Elite", but then again, that would make Ork Boyz, the poster boyz of the Horde playstyle, Line infantry - so some exceptions would definitely have to be made.
The end result though, would be a system where when designing a new weapon, GW can go "ok, we want this to be decent against Hordes, and weak vs Elites, so how about we make its text note "this weapon makes 1 attack vs Elites and Line Infantry, and 3 vs Horde" - for fluff reason, it could be more of a suppressing fire weapon - since Line and Elites are more disciplined and generally fewer in number, the weapon has less option to hit anything compared to this tightly packed swarm.
I was more trying to let the number of attacks scale to squad size so things like Toughness and Saves can be the decieding factor.
Also they arn't autohitting (but stacking upto -3to hit needs to die regardless).
If your trying to make 10 2+ saves for 20 rubrics vrs 10 5+ saves your going to actually loose a lot less rubrics.
Kanluwen wrote:Yeah, well you're not getting anti-horde improvements without the weapons becoming better against all targets as well. Not without a radical redesign of how 8th works.
Yup, because writing 'this weapon deals 1d6 hits, 2d6 if unit has 11+ models, 3d6 if 21+' requires radical redesign. Presto, magically better against hordes without affecting elite infantry or discouraging taking full squads of everything non-horde!
Ice_can wrote:Make flamers hit every model in the target unit
Finally an anti hore weapon that works better against multi model units.
Flamers need to be made more, not less versatile. One hit on big targets is stupid and a thing 8th rightfully dumped in garbage can. That's not things work anymore people, your special weapon you paid a lot of points for can't be made useless against something or you will ensure it will never be taken. It's bad design, even now, when flamers do something against big things they almost don't exist and you want to make them even worse?
Also, I like how that proposal is made through lens of a single tactical squad with one flamer type of deal without even bothering to consider how flamers can be used. Imagine 5 sternguard or DW veterans with 5 flamers/heavy flamers/frags - suddenly, 5 men unit costing less than these cultists or orks will spew out 100-150 auto-hits auto-deleting big units virtually without rolling. What in that strikes you as realistic, fun, or good mechanic design?
Kanluwen wrote:Yeah, well you're not getting anti-horde improvements without the weapons becoming better against all targets as well. Not without a radical redesign of how 8th works.
Yup, because writing 'this weapon deals 1d6 hits, 2d6 if unit has 11+ models, 3d6 if 21+' requires radical redesign. Presto, magically better against hordes without affecting elite infantry or discouraging taking full squads of everything non-horde!
Ice_can wrote:Make flamers hit every model in the target unit
Finally an anti hore weapon that works better against multi model units.
Flamers need to be made more, not less versatile. One hit on big targets is stupid and a thing 8th rightfully dumped in garbage can. That's not things work anymore people, your special weapon you paid a lot of points for can't be made useless against something or you will ensure it will never be taken. It's bad design, even now, when flamers do something against big things they almost don't exist and you want to make them even worse?
Also, I like how that proposal is made through lens of a single tactical squad with one flamer type of deal without even bothering to consider how flamers can be used. Imagine 5 sternguard or DW veterans with 5 flamers/heavy flamers/frags - suddenly, 5 men unit costing less than these cultists or orks will spew out 100-150 auto-hits auto-deleting big units virtually without rolling. What in that strikes you as realistic, fun, or good mechanic design?
Bloat drones would love getting 40 s6 flamer attacks too. Or a daemon prince of nurgle spraying a squad to death with his plague spewer then kicking the tank hiding behind them in the nads.
jcd386 wrote: Fixing plasma is as simple as having it always and only overheat on a natural roll of a 1 to hit, before rerolls. Vehicles and single model units should only take a single mortal wound, though.
You can't have a weapon malfunctioning every time a Hellblaster Squad shoots. Weapons can't be that unreliable!
You realize Plasma doesn't have to be overcharged, right? And overcharging should be a risky choice?
I'd also be fine if he'll blasters had a special rule that let the unit just take a mortal wound instead.
Flamer weapons already have the fix inside 8th edition. Just increase dice for bigger units. Still potent against single target because they can score more than 1 hit so are not wasted, more useful against bigger units. How much should they improve?
their die each 5 models in the squad should be ok. So all flamers should be 2d6 autohits against most MSU units, getting a better average.
Kanluwen wrote:Yeah, well you're not getting anti-horde improvements without the weapons becoming better against all targets as well. Not without a radical redesign of how 8th works.
Yup, because writing 'this weapon deals 1d6 hits, 2d6 if unit has 11+ models, 3d6 if 21+' requires radical redesign. Presto, magically better against hordes without affecting elite infantry or discouraging taking full squads of everything non-horde!
Ice_can wrote:Make flamers hit every model in the target unit
Finally an anti hore weapon that works better against multi model units.
Flamers need to be made more, not less versatile. One hit on big targets is stupid and a thing 8th rightfully dumped in garbage can. That's not things work anymore people, your special weapon you paid a lot of points for can't be made useless against something or you will ensure it will never be taken. It's bad design, even now, when flamers do something against big things they almost don't exist and you want to make them even worse?
Also, I like how that proposal is made through lens of a single tactical squad with one flamer type of deal without even bothering to consider how flamers can be used. Imagine 5 sternguard or DW veterans with 5 flamers/heavy flamers/frags - suddenly, 5 men unit costing less than these cultists or orks will spew out 100-150 auto-hits auto-deleting big units virtually without rolling. What in that strikes you as realistic, fun, or good mechanic design?
Bloat drones would love getting 40 s6 flamer attacks too. Or a daemon prince of nurgle spraying a squad to death with his plague spewer then kicking the tank hiding behind them in the nads.
I just run the numbers but it's achieving the aim of killing hoards but not murdering infantry and charictors.
All flamers would probably need rebalanced but they need that anyway as they are currently panta bar a few odd special rules flamers.
FBD twin plauge spitters aka under costed OP unit
40 shots 20 hits 19 wounds 15 dead cultist
20 shots 10 hits 10 wounds 8 dead Firewarriors
10 shots 5 hits 4 wounds 2 dead marines
Makes it a better anti horde weapon but yeah maybe too OP
Flamer Combi-Flamer tacs
40 shots 27 hits 18 wounds 12 dead cultists
20 shots 13 hits 9 wounds 4/5 dead Firewarriors
10 shots 7 hits 3 Wounds 1/2 dead Marines
Per model might be too strong maybe it should be per 2 models but it's achieving the aim of killing hoards better than elite infantry.
CapRichard wrote: Flamer weapons already have the fix inside 8th edition. Just increase dice for bigger units. Still potent against single target because they can score more than 1 hit so are not wasted, more useful against bigger units. How much should they improve?
their die each 5 models in the squad should be ok. So all flamers should be 2d6 autohits against most MSU units, getting a better average.
Per 5 models doesn't work as you just get 19 man cultists instead of 20, guard are already playing the 9man unit game so 9 Guardsmen take the same shots as a charictor? Or a 3 dude custodes squad.
Number of models == number of hits would work, although it might make a single Flamer *too* good against a 20-body unit.
Number of models == Cap on number of hits would work, but (a) is a nerf to many of the already-underperforming weapons (Flamers, and even Scytheguard), and (b) might start to get too cumbersome.
Number of attacks =
0-10 models: d6 11-20 models: 2d6 21+models: 3d6 feels like it has odd breakpoints. Although I'd suggest the 0-9, 10-19, 20+ brackets instead, or a D6 per 10, round up. Also, the wording gets long - and would be put on every data sheet that uses it.
Another option is
-Number of shots == number of models
-Hits on flat N+
--Most current Autohitters with d6 hits would be 4+ (Flamer)
--Most current roll-to-hits would be a 5+ (Frag missile/grenade)
--Most current d3 hits would be the above minus 1
-Things with 2d6 or 2d3 (or higher) simply get 2 (or more) times the number of shots
Personally, I like the second option paired with doubling the base shots. But there are a number of options out there.
Bharring wrote: Number of models == number of hits would work, although it might make a single Flamer *too* good against a 20-body unit.
Number of models == Cap on number of hits would work, but (a) is a nerf to many of the already-underperforming weapons (Flamers, and even Scytheguard), and (b) might start to get too cumbersome.
Number of attacks =
0-10 models: d6 11-20 models: 2d6 21+models: 3d6 feels like it has odd breakpoints. Although I'd suggest the 0-9, 10-19, 20+ brackets instead, or a D6 per 10, round up. Also, the wording gets long - and would be put on every data sheet that uses it.
Another option is
-Number of shots == number of models
-Hits on flat N+
--Most current Autohitters with d6 hits would be 4+ (Flamer)
--Most current roll-to-hits would be a 5+ (Frag missile/grenade)
--Most current d3 hits would be the above minus 1
-Things with 2d6 or 2d3 (or higher) simply get 2 (or more) times the number of shots
Personally, I like the second option paired with doubling the base shots. But there are a number of options out there.
So, let's say 20 T3 guys in a unit. 20 shots hitting on flat 4s. Is ten hits. Wounding on 3s. So let's say, 6 wounds. Let's say save on 5. So 4 wounds put of 20.
That's not exactly antihorde. It's pretty much the sand as now only with a ton of extra dice rolling.
Crimson wrote: Flamers should do 2d6 hits, up to the maximum of number of models in the target unit.
I'd prefer something along the lines of the Grav Flux Bombard where the number of dice you roll for your auto hits increases as unit size does.
I will add though, that one of the failings of attacking the issue through unit size is that for the most part "cheap units" aren't often "large units". Guard are never more than 10 at a time and can be less. There's not many mechanics in the game that can properly distinguish between facing 3, 10 man units and 10 10 man units unfortunately.
Banville,
That's a single flamer. Consider a 5-man Tac Flamer/Combi squad:
2 Flamer profiles: 40x(1/2)(2/3)(2/3) = 80/9
1 Bolter Sarge: 2x(1/2)(2/3)(2/3) = 4/9
3 Bolter Doods: 3x2x(2/3)(2/3)(2/3) = 16/9
Now a Tac squad does 11 wounds in the shooting phase alone. And that's just 5 guys. I'd consider that reasonable anti-horde, but not super-anti-horde.
If you could have more Flamers in a squad (and some armies can), it gets even better. The flamer just tripled effectiveness vs 20-man units (averaging 10 hits vs averaging 3.5 hits). It increased vs 10-mans, which feels right. It went down vs 5-mans, which is debateable. It went way down on 1-mans, which is desireable.
Not saying the numbers are tuned correctly, but remember a single flamer is cheap. We don't want to make Gaunts and Guardsmen and Orkz worthless.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Lunar,
Shouldn't a Flamer be more effective vs a 10man Guard unit than a 3-man remnant of a Guard unit?
That's why I like 2d6 capped at models-in-unit. It gives Flamers a buff, but not too much of a buff. The "Hits == model count" is certainly too much when you look beyond Tac Marine Flamers.
Weapons are fine, and would be too cumbersome to modify those.
The counter to multiple cheap models is morale, just make it work.
"During the morale phase, units suffer a penalty of -1 to morale for every allied unit that was destroyed that turn".
Punishes MSU, in particular those that have small units easy to remove.
Hordes are not a problem if they are in big units, they do suffer morale, or have to rely on mechanics that make them immune. After the conscript nerf this is something that could work (and make ATSKNF more useful).
Spoletta wrote: Weapons are fine, and would be too cumbersome to modify those.
The counter to multiple cheap models is morale, just make it work.
"During the morale phase, units suffer a penalty of -1 to morale for every allied unit that was destroyed that turn".
Punishes MSU, in particular those that have small units easy to remove.
Hordes are not a problem if they are in big units, they do suffer morale, or have to rely on mechanics that make them immune. After the conscript nerf this is something that could work (and make ATSKNF more useful).
I like this line of thinking. Having caught up on the thread, I like a lot of what's being said, but we're a bit down in the weeds (fixating on specific units and weapons) rather than talking about the broader issues of the game which is what I was trying to elucidate in my OP.
I think making morale more relevant would absolutely be a way to kick horde armies in the teeth, and the system Spoletta mentioned here is very good at that, I think, because it considers both the number of models lost (as the current morale rules do) from a single unit and considers the number of total units destroyed. It makes Conscripts have a role again, as they're troops choices that aren't as easily eliminated and so won't inflict the -1 on other units, and it allows for things like Synapse and Commissars (e.g. dedicated morale buffs) to still work, which means they're useful. Giving LD8 from a Commissar to a Guard squad is more valuable when the Squad is at a -4 from 4 other units being destroyed than when it's just 7. (This assumes the Commissar will have a rule that makes him immune to leadership degrades, because he's a commissar. I'm just spitballing).
This also removes the tendency to bring suicide units (3 man chaos terminator squads, 5-man scion squads, etc), because those will hurt friendly leadership when they're wiped out. Furthermore, units like Grots can have rules that their deaths don't impact the army's morale, while army abilities like Valhallans can halve both the penalty for losing units and the number of models that flee, since they're supposed to be the "meatgrinder" army.
So you shoot at a Marine list. You kill 2 Rhinos, a Scout squad, and a predator. Suddenly, every unit in the list is rolling -4 LDs on top of anything you kill from within them.
I like the idea, but I'm a little concerned about how it scales.
IG might have a hard time keeping anything on the table. Lets say you kill 4 IG squads, 2 officers and a chimera in a 2k game in one turn. Every single remaining unit now rolls at a -7. An IG-spam army will then lose half of every Infantry unit! To say nothing of what happens to the vehicles or bullogryns or such.
Personally I would rather it be a requirement for a lot of mechanics. For instance, roll to see if you can receive the benefits of an effect, based on leadership.
A unit of Guardsmen is issued "Take Aim!" You need to be lower than leadership on 2D6 to receive the order. It also gives people an incentive to bring commissars or buff their leadership.
Personally I would rather it be a requirement for a lot of mechanics. For instance, roll to see if you can receive the benefits of an effect, based on leadership.
A unit of Guardsmen is issued "Take Aim!" You need to be lower than leadership on 2D6 to receive the order. It also gives people an incentive to bring commissars or buff their leadership.
This is how it used to be, but we need to move away from Guardsmen, I think, specifically, because the problem I've identified isn't "Guardsmen need nerfing" (that's for another thread) but rather that "Elite infantry have no role, because the only role for infantry in 40k is to be bullet-soaks".
So rather than fixating obsessively on one comparatively irrelevant part of the game, I think the solution would be to have Leadership be a "durability-related" stat, which means that units can be numerous, and can contain numerous models for cheap, but these units aren't necessarily automatically more durable than a smaller number of larger units, or a smaller number of smaller units with better Leadership and defensive stats.
Right now, 30 Cultists and 3 units of 10 Cultists is indistinguishable in 40k, as far as durability goes. If anything, the 3 units of 10 are more durable than 30 because of the problem of overkill. However, if we could work Leadership into the question in a way that considered both "number of casualties suffered in this unit" and "number of other units lost" we'd be getting somewhere.
Bharring wrote: So you shoot at a Marine list. You kill 2 Rhinos, a Scout squad, and a predator. Suddenly, every unit in the list is rolling -4 LDs on top of anything you kill from within them.
I like the idea, but I'm a little concerned about how it scales.
IG might have a hard time keeping anything on the table. Lets say you kill 4 IG squads, 2 officers and a chimera in a 2k game in one turn. Every single remaining unit now rolls at a -7. An IG-spam army will then lose half of every Infantry unit! To say nothing of what happens to the vehicles or bullogryns or such.
Yes lets kill off anytype of MSU army and hurt specialist lists that dont spam the same 3 units.
So my SOB with transports tanks, or my DE with 6 transports means you just need to kill the transports and 1 guy in each squad to kill off my entire army,,, really good.
Bharring wrote:So you shoot at a Marine list. You kill 2 Rhinos, a Scout squad, and a predator. Suddenly, every unit in the list is rolling -4 LDs on top of anything you kill from within them.
I like the idea, but I'm a little concerned about how it scales.
IG might have a hard time keeping anything on the table. Lets say you kill 4 IG squads, 2 officers and a chimera in a 2k game in one turn. Every single remaining unit now rolls at a -7. An IG-spam army will then lose half of every Infantry unit! To say nothing of what happens to the vehicles or bullogryns or such.
This is a data issue. We could say -1 for every 2 units, or we could give more units resistance to this. For example, I think if Commissars were immune to this penalty and put out an aura, you'd see more commissars. Also, don't forget a unit has to suffer casualties to be forced to take a check - we're not saying "roll for your entire army!" just "roll for the units that have taken casualties, and somehow incorporate the fact that they just watched seven units get deleted in a single 6-second timeframe" or however long a 40k turn is supposed to be.
Amishprn86 wrote:
Bharring wrote: So you shoot at a Marine list. You kill 2 Rhinos, a Scout squad, and a predator. Suddenly, every unit in the list is rolling -4 LDs on top of anything you kill from within them.
I like the idea, but I'm a little concerned about how it scales.
IG might have a hard time keeping anything on the table. Lets say you kill 4 IG squads, 2 officers and a chimera in a 2k game in one turn. Every single remaining unit now rolls at a -7. An IG-spam army will then lose half of every Infantry unit! To say nothing of what happens to the vehicles or bullogryns or such.
Yes lets kill off anytype of MSU army and hurt specialist lists that dont spam the same 3 units.
So my SOB with transports tanks, or my DE with 6 transports means you just need to kill the transports and 1 guy in each squad to kill off my entire army,,, really good.
1) SOB and DE are not required to play MSU. That's a deliberate style choice, one which is actually very effective; perhaps encouraging people to bring smaller numbers of larger units is a good thing.
2) SOB really should have pretty good leadership. In earlier editions, it was trivial to make them Fearless. This will likely show up in their faction rules.
3) DE should absolutely flee in that situation. They're a speedy army that just watched all 6 of their transports get blown away in a single turn. Any sensible soldier, at that point, will probably leg it. It'd be like being in a tank company and watching half the company explode in six seconds.
I think Ld is the right direction for fixes, but it's kind of problematic right now that Elite infantry has worse outs for it than light infantry. This is both because it makes it a non fix, vs light infantry and because it makes it really hard to add models to elite units.
LunarSol wrote: I think Ld is the right direction for fixes, but it's kind of problematic right now that Elite infantry has worse outs for it than light infantry. This is both because it makes it a non fix, vs light infantry and because it makes it really hard to add models to elite units.
I think the latter problem will be fixed by MSU making morale checks worse. Losing half of 6 squads of 5 tactical marines is only 15 dead marines, but inflicts a -3 on any other part of the army that has suffered casualties. Meanwhile, losing 15 marines in 3 squads of 10 inflicts only a -1 on the rest of the army. So there's suddenly an incentive to take bigger units as well.
Bharring wrote:So you shoot at a Marine list. You kill 2 Rhinos, a Scout squad, and a predator. Suddenly, every unit in the list is rolling -4 LDs on top of anything you kill from within them.
I like the idea, but I'm a little concerned about how it scales.
IG might have a hard time keeping anything on the table. Lets say you kill 4 IG squads, 2 officers and a chimera in a 2k game in one turn. Every single remaining unit now rolls at a -7. An IG-spam army will then lose half of every Infantry unit! To say nothing of what happens to the vehicles or bullogryns or such.
This is a data issue. We could say -1 for every 2 units, or we could give more units resistance to this. For example, I think if Commissars were immune to this penalty and put out an aura, you'd see more commissars. Also, don't forget a unit has to suffer casualties to be forced to take a check - we're not saying "roll for your entire army!" just "roll for the units that have taken casualties, and somehow incorporate the fact that they just watched seven units get deleted in a single 6-second timeframe" or however long a 40k turn is supposed to be.
Amishprn86 wrote:
Bharring wrote: So you shoot at a Marine list. You kill 2 Rhinos, a Scout squad, and a predator. Suddenly, every unit in the list is rolling -4 LDs on top of anything you kill from within them.
I like the idea, but I'm a little concerned about how it scales.
IG might have a hard time keeping anything on the table. Lets say you kill 4 IG squads, 2 officers and a chimera in a 2k game in one turn. Every single remaining unit now rolls at a -7. An IG-spam army will then lose half of every Infantry unit! To say nothing of what happens to the vehicles or bullogryns or such.
Yes lets kill off anytype of MSU army and hurt specialist lists that dont spam the same 3 units.
So my SOB with transports tanks, or my DE with 6 transports means you just need to kill the transports and 1 guy in each squad to kill off my entire army,,, really good.
1) SOB and DE are not required to play MSU. That's a deliberate style choice, one which is actually very effective; perhaps encouraging people to bring smaller numbers of larger units is a good thing.
2) SOB really should have pretty good leadership. In earlier editions, it was trivial to make them Fearless. This will likely show up in their faction rules.
3) DE should absolutely flee in that situation. They're a speedy army that just watched all 6 of their transports get blown away in a single turn. Any sensible soldier, at that point, will probably leg it. It'd be like being in a tank company and watching half the company explode in six seconds.
Its not about requiring to play that way, its the fact it would completely ruin that play style, for even SM it would ruin it.
We could just make Moral work the way its suppose to, horde should have some buffs and some characters could give some buffs too, having the ability to gain +1 or +2, +3, or even +5 to LD is better than full immunity, Or you just lose 1D6 each fail Moral and remove all immunity and buffs cant go over LD10
Light Infantry seems to have more built in ways to completely ignore morale checks, where Elite Infantry gets the potential to reroll into a worse number.
Amishprn86 wrote: Its not about requiring to play that way, its the fact it would completely ruin that play style, for even SM it would ruin it.
We could just make Moral work the way its suppose to, horde should have some buffs and some characters could give some buffs too, having the ability to gain +1 or +2, +3, or even +5 to LD is better than full immunity, Or you just lose 1D6 each fail Moral and remove all immunity and buffs cant go over LD10
What? No, it wouldn't ruin it at all. It would just make it harder. Losing 6 venoms in a single turn is very difficult unless it's Planet Bowling Ball and the itty bitty tiny models with a 5++ (usually 4++ from that one faction) and -1 to-hit have nowhere to hide.
The rest of your rules are already more complicated and don't actually address the problem of 30 guardsmen in 3 squads of 10 being DRAMATICALLY harder to wipe than 30 guardsmen in one squad of 30.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
LunarSol wrote: Light Infantry seems to have more built in ways to completely ignore morale checks, where Elite Infantry gets the potential to reroll into a worse number.
The only light infantry that can completely ignore morale checks that I can think of are Tyranid infantry, in which case I have no problem with it, and Iyanden guardians.
Amishprn86 wrote: Its not about requiring to play that way, its the fact it would completely ruin that play style, for even SM it would ruin it.
We could just make Moral work the way its suppose to, horde should have some buffs and some characters could give some buffs too, having the ability to gain +1 or +2, +3, or even +5 to LD is better than full immunity, Or you just lose 1D6 each fail Moral and remove all immunity and buffs cant go over LD10
What? No, it wouldn't ruin it at all. It would just make it harder. Losing 6 venoms in a single turn is very difficult unless it's Planet Bowling Ball and the itty bitty tiny models with a 5++ (usually 4++ from that one faction) and -1 to-hit have nowhere to hide.
The rest of your rules are already more complicated and don't actually address the problem of 30 guardsmen in 3 squads of 10 being DRAMATICALLY harder to wipe than 30 guardsmen in one squad of 30.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
LunarSol wrote: Light Infantry seems to have more built in ways to completely ignore morale checks, where Elite Infantry gets the potential to reroll into a worse number.
The only light infantry that can completely ignore morale checks that I can think of are Tyranid infantry, in which case I have no problem with it, and Iyanden guardians.
It would make it to hard and make 30man units to strong, its just a different meta, nothing is fixed.
So because cheap hordes are more durable than elite units, the solution is to increase this problem by making the elites suffer twice for their poor durability?
Amishprn86 wrote: It would make it to hard and make 30mans x3 units to strong, its just a different meta, nothing is fixed
As someone who plays Adepta Sororitas, it would not make it too hard, at all. 30 mans x3 units (if by that you mean 3 10 man squads) is already super strong, so we're trying to condense it down to 1 30 man unit, at which point you can then inflict much higher morale losses and don't lose any shooting efficiency.
For example, 3 10 man units will never take a morale check that is d6+15 vs Leadership. One 30 man unit, though, might. So the 3x10 mans are dramatically better. However, if you did 15 damage to the 3 10 mans, you'd lose 1, then each other squads could suffer a smattering of casualties. This would make the Morale Check essentially the same as (d6+models lost from the unit + units lost from the army), or, equivalently, d6+casualties vs Leadership - units lost.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Crimson wrote: So because cheap hordes are more durable than elite units, the solution is to increase this problem by making the elites suffer twice for their poor durability?
No? The solution is to cause cheap hordes to take real morale losses. Elite infantry aren't "suffering twice". Quite the opposite, in fact, since they're harder to kill. Let me break the idea down into premises:
1) Elite units are individually tougher to kill than cheap units.
2) Cheap units have lots of bodies - so many bodies that Elite units may be individually tougher but they are not tougher in aggregate.
3) Therefore, we should allow the morale system to penalize bodies lost rather than points lost.
4) The current morale system attempts this, but fails, because the alternative is to take fewer "bodies per unit" since the morale system does not look beyond a single unit. You can still take the same total number of bodies, but have circumvented the morale system.
5) Therefore, we must build the morale system to look at bodies in totality across the army rather than just bodies in a unit and this seems like a simple way to do it.
Crimson wrote: So because cheap hordes are more durable than elite units, the solution is to increase this problem by making the elites suffer twice for their poor durability?
You miss understood, elite armies are MSU and not hordes, Hordes should be penalized more than MSU.
As i first said specialized units are screwed, we need rules to help us WANT to take units that are specialized and not mass generalist units. this proposal does the opposite.
Crimson wrote: So because cheap hordes are more durable than elite units, the solution is to increase this problem by making the elites suffer twice for their poor durability?
You miss understood, elite armies are MSU and not hordes, Hordes should be penalized more than MSU.
As i first said specialized units are screwed, we need rules to help us WANT to take units that are specialized and not mass generalist units. this proposal does the opposite.
Yes, that was my point. It is a terrible proposal.
Crimson wrote: So because cheap hordes are more durable than elite units, the solution is to increase this problem by making the elites suffer twice for their poor durability?
You miss understood, elite armies are MSU and not hordes, Hordes should be penalized more than MSU.
As i first said specialized units are screwed, we need rules to help us WANT to take units that are specialized and not mass generalist units. this proposal does the opposite.
What? No. We already have a reason to take specialized units. In fact, I'd argue that a huge problem with 40k right now is specialists are way way way way better than generalists in an army. Any proposal that gives a reason for generalists to exist is a good one for 40k, I think. So if that's what you think this does, then I'd argue that's a good thing.
Crimson wrote: So because cheap hordes are more durable than elite units, the solution is to increase this problem by making the elites suffer twice for their poor durability?
You miss understood, elite armies are MSU and not hordes, Hordes should be penalized more than MSU.
As i first said specialized units are screwed, we need rules to help us WANT to take units that are specialized and not mass generalist units. this proposal does the opposite.
Yes, that was my point. It is a terrible proposal.
Can you elucidate why, based on the premises I offered, rather than simply calling it terrible and then giving me nothing to argue?
1) Elite units are individually tougher to kill than cheap units.
2) Cheap units have lots of bodies - so many bodies that Elite units may be individually tougher but they are not tougher in aggregate.
3) Therefore, we should allow the morale system to penalize bodies lost rather than points lost.
4) The current morale system attempts this, but fails, because the alternative is to take fewer "bodies per unit" since the morale system does not look beyond a single unit. You can still take the same total number of bodies, but have circumvented the morale system.
5) Therefore, we must build the morale system to look at bodies in totality across the army rather than just bodies in a unit and this seems like a simple way to do it.
Your proposed system does not accomplish this goal. Elite armies (marines, aspect warriors etc) often operate in MSU style (and they should be able to!) This system punishes that playsyle. Furthermore, it makes any flimsy units a huge liability. Landspeeders, rhinos, tarantulas, etc. And of course scaling of this is completely bonkers. In big game more units die per turn than in a smaller game, thus causing bigger morale penalties under this system. It is completely crazy.
1) Elite units are individually tougher to kill than cheap units. 2) Cheap units have lots of bodies - so many bodies that Elite units may be individually tougher but they are not tougher in aggregate. 3) Therefore, we should allow the morale system to penalize bodies lost rather than points lost. 4) The current morale system attempts this, but fails, because the alternative is to take fewer "bodies per unit" since the morale system does not look beyond a single unit. You can still take the same total number of bodies, but have circumvented the morale system. 5) Therefore, we must build the morale system to look at bodies in totality across the army rather than just bodies in a unit and this seems like a simple way to do it.
Your proposed system does not accomplish this goal. Elite armies (marines, aspect warriors etc) often operate in MSU style (and they should be able to!) This system punishes that playsyle. Furthermore, it makes any flimsy units a huge liability. Landspeeders, rhinos, tarantulas, etc. And of course scaling of this is completely bonkers. In big game more units die per turn than in a smaller game, thus causing bigger morale penalties under this system. It is completely crazy.
So you don't disagree with the problem as identified, merely its implementation. Throw out the specific implementation, then, and we'll talk about ways to fix the problem.
-1 per unit destroyed in a certain radius? -1 per model destroyed within x" of a unit, including but not limited to its own? There's two similar ideas that are considerably less powerful, scale based on game size (well, board size, though very large games should have larger boards imo). I'd rather say the -1 per model destroyed within x" of a unit, including its own models, is more effective than the first, but I can't really articulate why I feel that way.
Except most Elite armies have aura buffs and need to cram as many units as possible into buff range to compete.
Als playing around with moral without first fixing the issue that it's easier to remove a unit of 5 tacs or FW's than 10 Guardsmen for the same points just means that armies forced into msu for CP are going to get screwed by moral losses aswell.
The game needs an anti mass 1W cheap model weapon, it currently doesn't have any.
I picked a flamer as most factions have access to them in some form or another.
Untill we have a weapon that cuts through cheap blob squads efficently trying to use moral won't help. You could also do wonky things with insane Alpha stike lists of LD debufs kill the easiest number of models then 1 dude per unit and wipe the unit.
-1 per unit destroyed in a certain radius? -1 per model destroyed within x" of a unit, including but not limited to its own? There's two similar ideas that are considerably less powerful, scale based on game size (well, board size, though very large games should have larger boards imo). I'd rather say the -1 per model destroyed within x" of a unit, including its own models, is more effective than the first, but I can't really articulate why I feel that way.
Again, both of these affect aura based armies more than non aura based. IG can easily make fire teams of one office and two squads. Marines need to pile all their characters and their best units together.
I'm really not sure that it is possible to achieve the results you're after. Though I'd like to see the morale system redesigned, but in different way. 8E system is very boring, you kill some dudes and as a result some more dudes may die. Previous editions where morale caused status effects was better.
Perhaps it would be possible to create FB style system, where units could break, and nearby broken units caused panic tests, and then elite units had solid Ld and would almost never break, but it would probably be too complicated.
The problem then is you are resigning yourself to the fact that elite infantry just won't be good.
Even adding a weapon that is good at massacring light infantry wouldn't really help, because it would be so niche. The majority of armies are still Marines, and players will still tailor to Marines. One or two squads in an army kitted out to be slightly more efficient against hordes won't fix the problem I don't think.
The role of infantry in 40k is bullet soak. If you can't make elite infantry relevant bullet soaks, then they just won't be good. You can do this by making light infantry less good at being bullet soaks, but if this is achieved by making the enemy pay points and special weapon slots on a specific weapon, then in a way the light infantry has already done it's job.
30k has a Rotor Cannon weapon that is "anti horde" in the context of the game but no one takes it, because it competes with things like volkite guns and anti-tank weapons and plasma guns.
Frag Grenade 6" Grenade2D6 S2 D1 AP- This weapon cannot cause more hits than there are models in the target unit
That, thrown by a Space Marine, will kill 0.26 Guardsmen per shot. Hardly anti-horde, even if it is mathematically more efficient against Guard than Marines.
To put it in perspective, if you had 100 Marines throwing this weapon, they would kill less than a BN of IG.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The problem then is you are resigning yourself to the fact that elite infantry just won't be good.
Even adding a weapon that is good at massacring light infantry wouldn't really help, because it would be so niche. The majority of armies are still Marines, and players will still tailor to Marines. One or two squads in an army kitted out to be slightly more efficient against hordes won't fix the problem I don't think.
The role of infantry in 40k is bullet soak. If you can't make elite infantry relevant bullet soaks, then they just won't be good. You can do this by making light infantry less good at being bullet soaks, but if this is achieved by making the enemy pay points and special weapon slots on a specific weapon, then in a way the light infantry has already done it's job.
30k has a Rotor Cannon weapon that is "anti horde" in the context of the game but no one takes it, because it competes with things like volkite guns and anti-tank weapons and plasma guns.
If there are effective anti horde weapons and hordes are a problem people will take them. But no such weapons really exist.
But I agree that normal marine statline just is unsalvageable under the current rules. I'm sure GW realises this too, and that's why Primaris marines exist. Their statline absolutely can work. There are just too many and too cheap multidamage weapons for it to be noticeable. But at least the Primaris give less point to small arms fire than the guard.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The problem then is you are resigning yourself to the fact that elite infantry just won't be good.
Even adding a weapon that is good at massacring light infantry wouldn't really help, because it would be so niche. The majority of armies are still Marines, and players will still tailor to Marines. One or two squads in an army kitted out to be slightly more efficient against hordes won't fix the problem I don't think.
The role of infantry in 40k is bullet soak. If you can't make elite infantry relevant bullet soaks, then they just won't be good. You can do this by making light infantry less good at being bullet soaks, but if this is achieved by making the enemy pay points and special weapon slots on a specific weapon, then in a way the light infantry has already done it's job.
30k has a Rotor Cannon weapon that is "anti horde" in the context of the game but no one takes it, because it competes with things like volkite guns and anti-tank weapons and plasma guns.
If there are effective anti horde weapons and hordes are a problem people will take them. But no such weapons really exist.
But I agree that normal marine statline just is unsalvageable under the current rules. I'm sure GW realises this too, and that's why Primaris marines exist. Their statline absolutely can work. There are just too many and too cheap multidamage weapons for it to be noticeable. But at least the Primaris give less point to small arms fire than the guard.
That's a good point.
I think we should keep small arms fire as the primary anti-horde, and then buff Elites so that small arms fire is less effective (multiple wounds per model).
Then, make sure to keep tabs on multi-damage weapons and/or charge more for them, reducing lethality overall (one of my problems with 40k right now) and indirectly buffing elite infantry.
Would that be an adequate solution to start testing on if we were GW hypothetically?
Frag Grenade 6" Grenade2D6 S2 D1 AP- This weapon cannot cause more hits than there are models in the target unit
That, thrown by a Space Marine, will kill 0.26 Guardsmen per shot. Hardly anti-horde, even if it is mathematically more efficient against Guard than Marines.
To put it in perspective, if you had 100 Marines throwing this weapon, they would kill less than a BN of IG.
Not really the point. Like you say, the point is that it is weapon which is more effective against guard than marines. But as I said in the last post, it is probably fools errant to try design such weapons based on minimarines, we just need to accept that marines are Primaris now and the system needs to be designed around that.
That's a good point.
I think we should keep small arms fire as the primary anti-horde, and then buff Elites so that small arms fire is less effective (multiple wounds per model).
Then, make sure to keep tabs on multi-damage weapons and/or charge more for them, reducing lethality overall (one of my problems with 40k right now) and indirectly buffing elite infantry.
Would that be an adequate solution to start testing on if we were GW hypothetically?
Ok! At least the problem isn't as dire as I had thought. The current 40k rule structure can absolutely handle those changes if the designers make them, no need for an overhaul.
But then a Tac squad is impacted by another Tac squad getting splatted, but an Aspect Warrior squad isn't impacted by another Aspect Warrior squad getting splatted?
The difference between datasheets isn't as uniform across the codexes.
I still think that the best way to salvage Elite Infantry is to throw into the rules actual anti-Horde weaponry. If a Flamer or Heavy Bolter deals more shots at an Infantry Squad or Cultists than against a Tac Squad, it will A) deal more wounds to the Horde unit, and B) let the morale rules as is work better against them.
A quick look into a mathhammer app says that if say a Heavy Bolter did its base 3 attacks vs a Tac Marine, and 1d6+3 vs an Infantry Squad, you would end up with an average of .5 dead Marines, and 1.8 dead Guardsmen (assuming BS 4+). Three Heavy Bolters would kill (on average) 5.4 Guardsmen, and only 1.5 Marines - at which point the Guard would have a decent chance at failing the morale check (1d6+5 against Leadership 7 [or 8 if Catachan/Commissar nearby, 9 with Lord Commissar/Yarrick]). Even passing the check, it would be 20/24 points of Guard downed vs 13-26 points of Marines, which is far better than the current ratio (and far more likely to actually trigger a morale check than previously).
That same Heavy Bolter example, 3 4+ BS Heavy Bolters firing into some Ork Boyz would down an average of 6.5 models in this situation, as opposed to the current average of 3.
There are several anti-elite weapons out there (Plasma immediately comes to mind - it can kill up to 2 Guardsmen or Grots...yay, or it can kill up to 2 Primaris Marines, for a much bigger payout.), but really nothing that is anti-Horde. Until this shifts to having both anti-elite AND anti-swarm weapons, we'll just see people focusing on cheaper units to capitalize on their soak. If we get to the point where there are tools for both jobs, that are stronger vs one than the other, it will force players to use more of a mix of units instead of a force tilted solely in one direction.
Part of the issue is the wounding chart. Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers wound Marines at the same rate as Infantry and Gaunts and basically anything T3.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Part of the issue is the wounding chart. Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers wound Marines at the same rate as Infantry and Gaunts and basically anything T3.
Let's keep Gaunts separate from guardsmen.
Hormagants are 5ppm. Hormagants take 50% more casualties, points wise, than Guardsmen do from these weapons. If Guardsmen cost 6 points per model, they would have the same durability as Hormagants do relative to these weapons.
Hormagants are more efficient at soaking wounds from these guns than marines, but that is specifically because synapse is assumed as a part of the equation. The second you ditch synapse, Hormagants are fleeing even if 1 dies.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Part of the issue is the wounding chart. Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers wound Marines at the same rate as Infantry and Gaunts and basically anything T3.
Let's keep Gaunts separate from guardsmen.
Hormagants are 5ppm. Hormagants take 50% more casualties, points wise, than Guardsmen do from these weapons. If Guardsmen cost 6 points per model, they would have the same durability as Hormagants do relative to these weapons.
Hormagants are more efficient at soaking wounds from these guns than marines, but that is specifically because synapse is assumed as a part of the equation. The second you ditch synapse, Hormagants are fleeing even if 1 dies.
You are also missing the fact that Hgants are 6+ saves
I posted the idea earlier but it may have gotten lost due to another argument, but what about something like the inverse of the Grav mechanic for anti horde weapons:
This weapon has an AP of -1 against models with an save of 5+ or higher.
Give it to Flamers, Whirlwinds, etc. Anti-chaff modification that doesn't mess with anything else. The bonus could be a save modifier, extra hits or whatever, but having the mechanic dependent on armor save (like Grav) limits it to the sort of units we're looking to target, I think.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Part of the issue is the wounding chart. Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers wound Marines at the same rate as Infantry and Gaunts and basically anything T3.
Well, they are basically both anti-infantry weapons, so it does somewhat make sense that they wound at the same rate, but the wounds don't stick at the same rate - Infantry (bumped to 6+) and Gaunts (bumped to 7+) are more likely to fail their save than Marines (bumped to 4+). Alter somewhat the rate of fire vs the Horde units though, and they will take more wounds and fail more saves on average than the more Elite units.
Insectum7 wrote:I posted the idea earlier but it may have gotten lost due to another argument, but what about something like the inverse of the Grav mechanic for anti horde weapons:
This weapon has an AP of -1 against models with an save of 5+ or higher.
Give it to Flamers, Whirlwinds, etc. Anti-chaff modification that doesn't mess with anything else. The bonus could be a save modifier, extra hits or whatever, but having the mechanic dependent on armor save (like Grav) limits it to the sort of units we're looking to target, I think.
Don't a good number of Tyranid units as a whole have a 5+ save? I could be wrong on this, but I remember in the old 6th edition codex a number of units did. On the flip side, if a unit like Ork Boyz, which are a pretty Hordey unit, get back 'Eavy Armor and go to a 4+, then this wouldn't work. And what of weapons like Heavy Flamers? They already have AP -1, do they get bumped to AP -2 vs 5+ or higher? Or 4+ or higher? The idea can work, but there are too many variables on what constitutes a Horde, chaff, and so on, and just simplifying it to 5+ armor or worse could unfairly screw over other codices.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Part of the issue is the wounding chart. Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers wound Marines at the same rate as Infantry and Gaunts and basically anything T3.
Well, they are basically both anti-infantry weapons, so it does somewhat make sense that they wound at the same rate, but the wounds don't stick at the same rate - Infantry (bumped to 6+) and Gaunts (bumped to 7+) are more likely to fail their save than Marines (bumped to 4+). Alter somewhat the rate of fire vs the Horde units though, and they will take more wounds and fail more saves on average than the more Elite units.
Insectum7 wrote:I posted the idea earlier but it may have gotten lost due to another argument, but what about something like the inverse of the Grav mechanic for anti horde weapons:
This weapon has an AP of -1 against models with an save of 5+ or higher.
Give it to Flamers, Whirlwinds, etc. Anti-chaff modification that doesn't mess with anything else. The bonus could be a save modifier, extra hits or whatever, but having the mechanic dependent on armor save (like Grav) limits it to the sort of units we're looking to target, I think.
Don't a good number of Tyranid units as a whole have a 5+ save? I could be wrong on this, but I remember in the old 6th edition codex a number of units did. On the flip side, if a unit like Ork Boyz, which are a pretty Hordey unit, get back 'Eavy Armor and go to a 4+, then this wouldn't work. And what of weapons like Heavy Flamers? They already have AP -1, do they get bumped to AP -2 vs 5+ or higher? Or 4+ or higher? The idea can work, but there are too many variables on what constitutes a Horde, chaff, and so on, and just simplifying it to 5+ armor or worse could unfairly screw over other codices.
What you're missing is that the Marines are taking 50% more damage than they would if there wasn't AP, but 5+ models only take 25% more damage, and 6+ models are only taking 20% more. The worse your save is starting out, the less you care about AP.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Part of the issue is the wounding chart. Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers wound Marines at the same rate as Infantry and Gaunts and basically anything T3.
Well, they are basically both anti-infantry weapons, so it does somewhat make sense that they wound at the same rate, but the wounds don't stick at the same rate - Infantry (bumped to 6+) and Gaunts (bumped to 7+) are more likely to fail their save than Marines (bumped to 4+). Alter somewhat the rate of fire vs the Horde units though, and they will take more wounds and fail more saves on average than the more Elite units.
Insectum7 wrote:I posted the idea earlier but it may have gotten lost due to another argument, but what about something like the inverse of the Grav mechanic for anti horde weapons:
This weapon has an AP of -1 against models with an save of 5+ or higher.
Give it to Flamers, Whirlwinds, etc. Anti-chaff modification that doesn't mess with anything else. The bonus could be a save modifier, extra hits or whatever, but having the mechanic dependent on armor save (like Grav) limits it to the sort of units we're looking to target, I think.
Don't a good number of Tyranid units as a whole have a 5+ save? I could be wrong on this, but I remember in the old 6th edition codex a number of units did. On the flip side, if a unit like Ork Boyz, which are a pretty Hordey unit, get back 'Eavy Armor and go to a 4+, then this wouldn't work. And what of weapons like Heavy Flamers? They already have AP -1, do they get bumped to AP -2 vs 5+ or higher? Or 4+ or higher? The idea can work, but there are too many variables on what constitutes a Horde, chaff, and so on, and just simplifying it to 5+ armor or worse could unfairly screw over other codices.
What you're missing is that the Marines are taking 50% more damage than they would if there wasn't AP, but 5+ models only take 25% more damage, and 6+ models are only taking 20% more. The worse your save is starting out, the less you care about AP.
Its why I specifically noted that if you simply alter the rate of fire vs the Horde units, they will be A) wounded more often and B) fail more saves than the Marines. If the Heavy Bolter did 3 shots vs Marines and 1d6+3 shots vs Horde units, guess which group is likely to take more wounds.
Make the weapons that are supposed to be filling anti-Horde duty, and actually give them the rules to do that while still being able to do something at least to the Elite units, and it will balance out somewhat. Yes, you can fire your plasma at Gaunts, but you don't want to unless there are better targets available - the same should be true of Flamers/Heavy Flamers, Heavy Bolters and their equivalents vs Elite units.
Per 5 models doesn't work as you just get 19 man cultists instead of 20, guard are already playing the 9man unit game so 9 Guardsmen take the same shots as a charictor? Or a 3 dude custodes squad.
9 models is 2d6 vs 1d6 against a character o 3 custodes.vI oroposed 1d6 + 1d6 per 5 models.
I would eliminate single digit increments for big units actually.
greyknight12 wrote: From the view of a longtime GK player, there are 2 primary things hurting elite infantry right now:
1. The 8th ed AP/SV system. Before, when elite models had a 2+ save, they could survive 5/6 of small arms shots directed at them. Terminators used to laugh at heavy bolters and heavy flamers; now they are a credible threat. Up until the beginning of 7th, there wasn’t a lot that was ideal to get through good armor saves. Additionally, elite infantry had the tools to kill other elites: power weapons. Ranged weapons that ignored all armor were rare outside of plasma/melta. I’d argue that the very beginning of 6th was one of the few good times to be a terminator in 40k; power weapons got AP values and grav hadn’t shown up yet. But with AP-1 affecting everyone now, medium grade weapons that are commonly found in most armies wreck elites, vehicles, and light infantry alike.
2. Elite infantry tend to be specialized a little too much. A GK power armored marine puts out a lot of damage, which he pays for...but he dies like any other space marine. Harlequins are even better examples of the glass cannon. On the other hand, “tough” units like terminators pay for durability but put out so little damage that they can be ignored. IMO, Custodes are doing fine precisely because while expensive they put out elite-level damage but also are tough enough to survive under fire (the bikes are perhaps the perfect 40k unit).
Terminators have the same durability to AP-1 as before with the second wound compared to AP4 last edition.
In fact this is the most durable Terminators have ever been of you bothered to do the math. Outside specific situations like with the Autocannon and Battle Cannon, durability is better.
GK terminators also took a 33% points hike, and they die just as fast to plasma as they they ever did. Go read my other posts before you tell me to “do the math”...I mathhammer all the time. I used terminators as an example since a lot of people lately don’t know how the old AP system worked...they’ve only played 8th. TBH the real victims are 3+ units; there wasn’t a lot of AP 3 in the older editions. I apologize for not using a perfect example The point is that there a lot more “general purpose” weapons now and aiming your “horde control” weapons at elite units is effective enough that you don’t often need to bring the same variety of weapons classes as you once did.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Part of the issue is the wounding chart. Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers wound Marines at the same rate as Infantry and Gaunts and basically anything T3.
Well, they are basically both anti-infantry weapons, so it does somewhat make sense that they wound at the same rate, but the wounds don't stick at the same rate - Infantry (bumped to 6+) and Gaunts (bumped to 7+) are more likely to fail their save than Marines (bumped to 4+). Alter somewhat the rate of fire vs the Horde units though, and they will take more wounds and fail more saves on average than the more Elite units.
Insectum7 wrote:I posted the idea earlier but it may have gotten lost due to another argument, but what about something like the inverse of the Grav mechanic for anti horde weapons:
This weapon has an AP of -1 against models with an save of 5+ or higher.
Give it to Flamers, Whirlwinds, etc. Anti-chaff modification that doesn't mess with anything else. The bonus could be a save modifier, extra hits or whatever, but having the mechanic dependent on armor save (like Grav) limits it to the sort of units we're looking to target, I think.
Don't a good number of Tyranid units as a whole have a 5+ save? I could be wrong on this, but I remember in the old 6th edition codex a number of units did. On the flip side, if a unit like Ork Boyz, which are a pretty Hordey unit, get back 'Eavy Armor and go to a 4+, then this wouldn't work. And what of weapons like Heavy Flamers? They already have AP -1, do they get bumped to AP -2 vs 5+ or higher? Or 4+ or higher? The idea can work, but there are too many variables on what constitutes a Horde, chaff, and so on, and just simplifying it to 5+ armor or worse could unfairly screw over other codices.
What you're missing is that the Marines are taking 50% more damage than they would if there wasn't AP, but 5+ models only take 25% more damage, and 6+ models are only taking 20% more. The worse your save is starting out, the less you care about AP.
Its why I specifically noted that if you simply alter the rate of fire vs the Horde units, they will be A) wounded more often and B) fail more saves than the Marines. If the Heavy Bolter did 3 shots vs Marines and 1d6+3 shots vs Horde units, guess which group is likely to take more wounds.
Make the weapons that are supposed to be filling anti-Horde duty, and actually give them the rules to do that while still being able to do something at least to the Elite units, and it will balance out somewhat. Yes, you can fire your plasma at Gaunts, but you don't want to unless there are better targets available - the same should be true of Flamers/Heavy Flamers, Heavy Bolters and their equivalents vs Elite units.
The problem with that solition is overlap between the units people complain about being OP, and the units people are trying to "protect". Both Guardsmen squads and Tactical Squads can come in groups of ten. Are guardsmen "horde" while marines are "elite", yet still the same squad size?
The problem is at the moment 20 stong conscript squads take 6 shots 5 marines take 6 shots there is no scaling for the unit size if the marines take 4 hits 2 wounds a 1 failed save thats not unreasonable.
Its that nothing actually allows you to put scalable volume of fire into a unit so that T and Sv can make the difference.
Flaming 10 custodes is a lot less likely to kill them than 10 grots buy when your capped out at 4 or 6 shots from weapons they really don't allow volume scale to punish squishy models.
Those few weapons with enough shots are also usually fixed number currently so are better pointed at vehicals or small units with invulnerables in the current mechanics.
They work perfectly and kill hormagaunts and the like magnificently!
People here talk about hordes but actually think about a single model, which is so durable that it makes anti horde weapons look bad. Weapons are not the problem!
If you take guardsmen a the basis for hordes, you end up with overpowered anti horde weapons!
Spoletta wrote: Anti horde weapons are fine, don't touch them!
They work perfectly and kill hormagaunts and the like magnificently!
People here talk about hordes but actually think about a single model, which is so durable that it makes anti horde weapons look bad. Weapons are not the problem!
If you take guardsmen a the basis for hordes, you end up with overpowered anti horde weapons!
What existing anti horde weapons are you talking about?
Well, they are basically both anti-infantry weapons, so it does somewhat make sense that they wound at the same rate, but the wounds don't stick at the same rate - Infantry (bumped to 6+) and Gaunts (bumped to 7+) are more likely to fail their save than Marines (bumped to 4+). Alter somewhat the rate of fire vs the Horde units though, and they will take more wounds and fail more saves on average than the more Elite units.
the thing is we aren't playing with a 1000 marines on a table or more, and with a 50% chance to fail a safe at a cost higher then 50% comparing to a guant or an IG dude, the marines are very inefficient. And that is just normal marines, am not talking about real elite stuff that has t4 and 1 wound, and costs 20pts or higher.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Part of the issue is the wounding chart. Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers wound Marines at the same rate as Infantry and Gaunts and basically anything T3.
Well, they are basically both anti-infantry weapons, so it does somewhat make sense that they wound at the same rate, but the wounds don't stick at the same rate - Infantry (bumped to 6+) and Gaunts (bumped to 7+) are more likely to fail their save than Marines (bumped to 4+). Alter somewhat the rate of fire vs the Horde units though, and they will take more wounds and fail more saves on average than the more Elite units.
Insectum7 wrote:I posted the idea earlier but it may have gotten lost due to another argument, but what about something like the inverse of the Grav mechanic for anti horde weapons:
This weapon has an AP of -1 against models with an save of 5+ or higher.
Give it to Flamers, Whirlwinds, etc. Anti-chaff modification that doesn't mess with anything else. The bonus could be a save modifier, extra hits or whatever, but having the mechanic dependent on armor save (like Grav) limits it to the sort of units we're looking to target, I think.
Don't a good number of Tyranid units as a whole have a 5+ save? I could be wrong on this, but I remember in the old 6th edition codex a number of units did. On the flip side, if a unit like Ork Boyz, which are a pretty Hordey unit, get back 'Eavy Armor and go to a 4+, then this wouldn't work. And what of weapons like Heavy Flamers? They already have AP -1, do they get bumped to AP -2 vs 5+ or higher? Or 4+ or higher? The idea can work, but there are too many variables on what constitutes a Horde, chaff, and so on, and just simplifying it to 5+ armor or worse could unfairly screw over other codices.
What you're missing is that the Marines are taking 50% more damage than they would if there wasn't AP, but 5+ models only take 25% more damage, and 6+ models are only taking 20% more. The worse your save is starting out, the less you care about AP.
Its why I specifically noted that if you simply alter the rate of fire vs the Horde units, they will be A) wounded more often and B) fail more saves than the Marines. If the Heavy Bolter did 3 shots vs Marines and 1d6+3 shots vs Horde units, guess which group is likely to take more wounds.
Make the weapons that are supposed to be filling anti-Horde duty, and actually give them the rules to do that while still being able to do something at least to the Elite units, and it will balance out somewhat. Yes, you can fire your plasma at Gaunts, but you don't want to unless there are better targets available - the same should be true of Flamers/Heavy Flamers, Heavy Bolters and their equivalents vs Elite units.
The problem with that solition is overlap between the units people complain about being OP, and the units people are trying to "protect". Both Guardsmen squads and Tactical Squads can come in groups of ten. Are guardsmen "horde" while marines are "elite", yet still the same squad size?
Its why I suggested using keywords to denote what type of unit they are. Every unit gets a keyword along the lines of Horde, Line, and Elite, and then some weapons that are supposed to be good at taking out hordes can get a buff vs units with the Horde keyword and a minor malus vs units with the Elite keyword. Horde units would be units that work largely by weight of numbers - Ork Boyz, Conscripts, Gaunts, etc, while Line units would be things like Fire Warriors, Skitarii, Space Marine Scouts and the like. Elites would be more expensive units, like Tac Marines, Chaos Marines, Stealth Suits, and so on.
I hate to lean on the fluff as an excuse, but on average, a unit of Tactical Marines is more heavily trained, battle experienced, and so on than your average squad of Guardsmen, so even if there is 10 of both of them, it would make sense that the Tactical Marine knows how to minimize the damage from some weapons compared to the Guard. Taking a Plasma round to the face will kill both regardless, but the Marine knows when to move, how to take quick cover in the surroundings, and minimize their profile enough to help them take less overall damage from the lighter weapons. That would translate to crunch with say a flamer dealing 1d3 hits vs Elites, 1d6 vs Line, and 2d6 vs Horde.
Giving everything a keyword, and deciding what gets what keyword would be difficult and take time, but after it is done, weapons and abilities can then be more easily balanced around their own niche, and a tac list would have to take a little of everything in order to cover its bases.
Spoletta wrote: Anti horde weapons are fine, don't touch them!
They work perfectly and kill hormagaunts and the like magnificently!
People here talk about hordes but actually think about a single model, which is so durable that it makes anti horde weapons look bad. Weapons are not the problem!
If you take guardsmen a the basis for hordes, you end up with overpowered anti horde weapons!
What existing anti horde weapons are you talking about?
Every weapon S3 or S4 without AP, except the ones in the hands of marines, because they suck.
A cultist/guardman with an autogun/lasgun scores 41% of it's value when shooting at a termagant, making it definitely an efficient anti horde weapon.
A termagant with a devourer scores the same.
If you score higher than 35% then by definition you are a counter, so yes, there are efficient answers to hordes. The fact that marines tend to suck with bolters or that they die horribly to small weapons, doesn't mean that we don't have those.
I think there are better options than keywords that counter each other, which feels more like a bandaid than a cure to these issues.
I think changing all the old template weapons to "can not do more hits than models in the unit" and then boosting the number of hits they get is the best option to fix those weapons. 2D6 should be the baseline. A flamer would then do an average of 7 hits but be terrible against vehicles and smaller units. This is just a quality of life change for those weapons.
Then something has to change with AP, which is the main offender when it comes to elite infantry being uneffective. I think the easiest change would be to allow certain armor types to ignore a point of AP that would effect their armor save. All marine units, for sure, but other factions could probably use it was well, such as necrons. This let's these units survive high rate of fire weapons better.
Then, cover shouldn't be something helps Marines more than it does guardsmen, so I'd remove the +1 to armor save and have it instead grant a 6+ FNP type roll to ignore damage. This is after any other saving rolls and sperate from other kinds of FNP. It increases any unit in cover's durability by the same percent. The only downside I see with this is it does sightly slow the game down.
To fix the wound/damage issue, I think I'd change the way we roll armor saves to "when a model takes a wound, roll a number of armor saves equal to the damage characteristic of the weapon that caused the wound. Unsaved damage reduces the wounds of that model, but does not roll over to other models." So if you shoot an auto cannon at a marine, he has to take 2 saves to survive each shot. If you shoot an auto cannon at a primaris marine, he also has to take two saves. This increases the ability of high damage weapons to kill models with fewer wounds than they do damage, and simultaneously increases the durability of multi wound models by making it less likely that they get one shotted by weapons with exactly the damage they have wounds, assuming they get an armor save against it. VS targets that have more wounds than the firing weapons the average damage is about the same on average, but is less spikey (like now when you can fair a single save and take 6 damage or make it and take none), which I think would be more satisfying than the current system since a few points of damage from high damage weapons would be likely to always go through. This does slow the game a bit, but not by much, since most high damage weapons have low rates of fire.
I think these changes would work well to fix the core issues with durability introduced in 8th without changing too much about how the game is played or feels to play.
They are less about nerfing hordes than they are buffing elite infantry and making high damage weapons more effective.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Part of the issue is the wounding chart. Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers wound Marines at the same rate as Infantry and Gaunts and basically anything T3.
Well, they are basically both anti-infantry weapons, so it does somewhat make sense that they wound at the same rate, but the wounds don't stick at the same rate - Infantry (bumped to 6+) and Gaunts (bumped to 7+) are more likely to fail their save than Marines (bumped to 4+). Alter somewhat the rate of fire vs the Horde units though, and they will take more wounds and fail more saves on average than the more Elite units.
Insectum7 wrote:I posted the idea earlier but it may have gotten lost due to another argument, but what about something like the inverse of the Grav mechanic for anti horde weapons:
This weapon has an AP of -1 against models with an save of 5+ or higher.
Give it to Flamers, Whirlwinds, etc. Anti-chaff modification that doesn't mess with anything else. The bonus could be a save modifier, extra hits or whatever, but having the mechanic dependent on armor save (like Grav) limits it to the sort of units we're looking to target, I think.
Don't a good number of Tyranid units as a whole have a 5+ save? I could be wrong on this, but I remember in the old 6th edition codex a number of units did. On the flip side, if a unit like Ork Boyz, which are a pretty Hordey unit, get back 'Eavy Armor and go to a 4+, then this wouldn't work. And what of weapons like Heavy Flamers? They already have AP -1, do they get bumped to AP -2 vs 5+ or higher? Or 4+ or higher? The idea can work, but there are too many variables on what constitutes a Horde, chaff, and so on, and just simplifying it to 5+ armor or worse could unfairly screw over other codices.
What you're missing is that the Marines are taking 50% more damage than they would if there wasn't AP, but 5+ models only take 25% more damage, and 6+ models are only taking 20% more. The worse your save is starting out, the less you care about AP.
Its why I specifically noted that if you simply alter the rate of fire vs the Horde units, they will be A) wounded more often and B) fail more saves than the Marines. If the Heavy Bolter did 3 shots vs Marines and 1d6+3 shots vs Horde units, guess which group is likely to take more wounds.
Make the weapons that are supposed to be filling anti-Horde duty, and actually give them the rules to do that while still being able to do something at least to the Elite units, and it will balance out somewhat. Yes, you can fire your plasma at Gaunts, but you don't want to unless there are better targets available - the same should be true of Flamers/Heavy Flamers, Heavy Bolters and their equivalents vs Elite units.
The problem with that solition is overlap between the units people complain about being OP, and the units people are trying to "protect". Both Guardsmen squads and Tactical Squads can come in groups of ten. Are guardsmen "horde" while marines are "elite", yet still the same squad size?
Its why I suggested using keywords to denote what type of unit they are. Every unit gets a keyword along the lines of Horde, Line, and Elite, and then some weapons that are supposed to be good at taking out hordes can get a buff vs units with the Horde keyword and a minor malus vs units with the Elite keyword. Horde units would be units that work largely by weight of numbers - Ork Boyz, Conscripts, Gaunts, etc, while Line units would be things like Fire Warriors, Skitarii, Space Marine Scouts and the like. Elites would be more expensive units, like Tac Marines, Chaos Marines, Stealth Suits, and so on.
I hate to lean on the fluff as an excuse, but on average, a unit of Tactical Marines is more heavily trained, battle experienced, and so on than your average squad of Guardsmen, so even if there is 10 of both of them, it would make sense that the Tactical Marine knows how to minimize the damage from some weapons compared to the Guard. Taking a Plasma round to the face will kill both regardless, but the Marine knows when to move, how to take quick cover in the surroundings, and minimize their profile enough to help them take less overall damage from the lighter weapons. That would translate to crunch with say a flamer dealing 1d3 hits vs Elites, 1d6 vs Line, and 2d6 vs Horde.
Giving everything a keyword, and deciding what gets what keyword would be difficult and take time, but after it is done, weapons and abilities can then be more easily balanced around their own niche, and a tac list would have to take a little of everything in order to cover its bases.
I get where this is coming from but I find it mechanically questionable as it's A: not particularly intuitive and B: I find the adding of keywords to be cumbersome. For a different type of game this would be good, but for 40K it feels not accessible enough. 8th is so streamlined with it's stats/datasheets and I'd hate to disrupt that.
It would also end up with eldar getting some sort of ultra elite trait, which would make them negate almost all shoting and melee hits, because of how superior and fast they are.
Every weapon S3 or S4 without AP, except the ones in the hands of marines, because they suck.
A cultist/guardman with an autogun/lasgun scores 41% of it's value when shooting at a termagant, making it definitely an efficient anti horde weapon.
A termagant with a devourer scores the same.
If you score higher than 35% then by definition you are a counter, so yes, there are efficient answers to hordes. The fact that marines tend to suck with bolters or that they die horribly to small weapons, doesn't mean that we don't have those.
But that is not being anti horde, because your anti horde, but a horde vs horde mirror match. If two units of marines both in cover start shoting at each other with just bolters, you may get the feeling that marines are unkillable gods in 8th ed, and that the most efficient way to deal with meq is to melee them. By the way I had such a feeling when I was being tought the game. GK termintors in cover seemed to be able take on twice or three times as many points as they cost, and the only store unit that could do something to them was the store dreadnought. And yes I thought that a dreadnought was a bit OP, considering he costs less then termintors, but kills them in melee so easily
I uses those 2 as examples, but there are elite units like aggressors and scout bikes who can do that, likewise there are vehicles and monstrous creatures that are good at it, like a dev fex.
The means are there, we don't lack them. If some dumb idea like increasing the number of hits caused by templates passes, you will feel good taking down guards and the same time removed regular light infantry from the game. That is a bad bad idea.
Spoletta wrote: I uses those 2 as examples, but there are elite units like aggressors and scout bikes who can do that, likewise there are vehicles and monstrous creatures that are good at it, like a dev fex.
The means are there, we don't lack them. If some dumb idea like increasing the number of hits caused by templates passes, you will feel good taking down guards and the same time removed regular light infantry from the game. That is a bad bad idea.
Except assuaalt cannons, HBC's etc arn't anti horde they are generalist anti everything weapons thats what they are supposed to be.
Lasguns remove more points of marines and Firewarriors than guardsmen. That does not make it anti horde, its anti elite anti line infantry not hordes of 4point models.
Also aggressors and scout bikes also kill more points of marines and Firewarriors than guardsmen they are just slight more points efficent due to firing 3 weapons.
Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Spoletta wrote: I uses those 2 as examples, but there are elite units like aggressors and scout bikes who can do that, likewise there are vehicles and monstrous creatures that are good at it, like a dev fex.
The means are there, we don't lack them. If some dumb idea like increasing the number of hits caused by templates passes, you will feel good taking down guards and the same time removed regular light infantry from the game. That is a bad bad idea.
Except assuaalt cannons, HBC's etc arn't anti horde they are generalist anti everything weapons thats what they are supposed to be.
Lasguns remove more points of marines and Firewarriors than guardsmen. That does not make it anti horde, its anti elite anti line infantry not hordes of 4point models.
Also aggressors and scout bikes also kill more points of marines and Firewarriors than guardsmen they are just slight more points efficent due to firing 3 weapons.
This doesn't mean anything.
Is the weapon good at killing hordes? Yes because by firing 3 times into an horde you made back your value in points, so you are shooting at an optimal target.
Does it also get to kill other things well? Nice! Doesn't mean that the weapon is not an anti horde weapon.
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Nobody cares about morale checks. Morale is a useless mechanic just like in last edition.
jcd386 wrote:I think there are better options than keywords that counter each other, which feels more like a bandaid than a cure to these issues.
I think changing all the old template weapons to "can not do more hits than models in the unit" and then boosting the number of hits they get is the best option to fix those weapons. 2D6 should be the baseline. A flamer would then do an average of 7 hits but be terrible against vehicles and smaller units. This is just a quality of life change for those weapons.
Then something has to change with AP, which is the main offender when it comes to elite infantry being uneffective. I think the easiest change would be to allow certain armor types to ignore a point of AP that would effect their armor save. All marine units, for sure, but other factions could probably use it was well, such as necrons. This let's these units survive high rate of fire weapons better.
Then, cover shouldn't be something helps Marines more than it does guardsmen, so I'd remove the +1 to armor save and have it instead grant a 6+ FNP type roll to ignore damage. This is after any other saving rolls and sperate from other kinds of FNP. It increases any unit in cover's durability by the same percent. The only downside I see with this is it does sightly slow the game down.
To fix the wound/damage issue, I think I'd change the way we roll armor saves to "when a model takes a wound, roll a number of armor saves equal to the damage characteristic of the weapon that caused the wound. Unsaved damage reduces the wounds of that model, but does not roll over to other models." So if you shoot an auto cannon at a marine, he has to take 2 saves to survive each shot. If you shoot an auto cannon at a primaris marine, he also has to take two saves. This increases the ability of high damage weapons to kill models with fewer wounds than they do damage, and simultaneously increases the durability of multi wound models by making it less likely that they get one shotted by weapons with exactly the damage they have wounds, assuming they get an armor save against it. VS targets that have more wounds than the firing weapons the average damage is about the same on average, but is less spikey (like now when you can fair a single save and take 6 damage or make it and take none), which I think would be more satisfying than the current system since a few points of damage from high damage weapons would be likely to always go through. This does slow the game a bit, but not by much, since most high damage weapons have low rates of fire.
I think these changes would work well to fix the core issues with durability introduced in 8th without changing too much about how the game is played or feels to play.
They are less about nerfing hordes than they are buffing elite infantry and making high damage weapons more effective.
Maxing out hits to the number of models in a unit would make certain weapons nearly useless against vehicles or monstrous creatures. The balancing act shouldn't make the weapon so bad as to be basically useless against certain targets, it should instead be to make it more effective vs its sweet spot targets. It would also encourage gamier acts such as always going for min sized squads - 5 Skitarii, 5 Fire Warriors, 5 Tactical Marines, etc, to specifically avoid taking the extra hits, basically making MSU the way to go.
Your other suggestions seem like things that would drag the game on. If every time a unit is in cover, it makes an extra saving throw, you could be rolling dozens of dice per attack. Same with the wounding system you want to implement, which would make taking down pretty much anything with an invulnerable save a measurement of tedium, and just drag the game on. A trio of Lascannons hit unit X, rolling 12 damage between them. It has a 3+ save, a 5+ invuln, and is in cover. It now gets 12 5+ saves, and then any failed saving throw gets a 6+ save.
Weapons like Lascannons SHOULD deal a good chunk of damage if they make it past the enemy's defenses - and muddling up stacked saves and invulns and so on will just slow the game down, and make it harder for dedicated anti-tank weapons to do their job. The problem with say Primaris is that weapons like Plasma are fairly cheap and easy to come by, and have little risk due to all the reroll shenanigans you can get.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Part of the issue is the wounding chart. Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers wound Marines at the same rate as Infantry and Gaunts and basically anything T3.
Well, they are basically both anti-infantry weapons, so it does somewhat make sense that they wound at the same rate, but the wounds don't stick at the same rate - Infantry (bumped to 6+) and Gaunts (bumped to 7+) are more likely to fail their save than Marines (bumped to 4+). Alter somewhat the rate of fire vs the Horde units though, and they will take more wounds and fail more saves on average than the more Elite units.
Insectum7 wrote:I posted the idea earlier but it may have gotten lost due to another argument, but what about something like the inverse of the Grav mechanic for anti horde weapons:
This weapon has an AP of -1 against models with an save of 5+ or higher.
Give it to Flamers, Whirlwinds, etc. Anti-chaff modification that doesn't mess with anything else. The bonus could be a save modifier, extra hits or whatever, but having the mechanic dependent on armor save (like Grav) limits it to the sort of units we're looking to target, I think.
Don't a good number of Tyranid units as a whole have a 5+ save? I could be wrong on this, but I remember in the old 6th edition codex a number of units did. On the flip side, if a unit like Ork Boyz, which are a pretty Hordey unit, get back 'Eavy Armor and go to a 4+, then this wouldn't work. And what of weapons like Heavy Flamers? They already have AP -1, do they get bumped to AP -2 vs 5+ or higher? Or 4+ or higher? The idea can work, but there are too many variables on what constitutes a Horde, chaff, and so on, and just simplifying it to 5+ armor or worse could unfairly screw over other codices.
What you're missing is that the Marines are taking 50% more damage than they would if there wasn't AP, but 5+ models only take 25% more damage, and 6+ models are only taking 20% more. The worse your save is starting out, the less you care about AP.
Its why I specifically noted that if you simply alter the rate of fire vs the Horde units, they will be A) wounded more often and B) fail more saves than the Marines. If the Heavy Bolter did 3 shots vs Marines and 1d6+3 shots vs Horde units, guess which group is likely to take more wounds.
Make the weapons that are supposed to be filling anti-Horde duty, and actually give them the rules to do that while still being able to do something at least to the Elite units, and it will balance out somewhat. Yes, you can fire your plasma at Gaunts, but you don't want to unless there are better targets available - the same should be true of Flamers/Heavy Flamers, Heavy Bolters and their equivalents vs Elite units.
The problem with that solition is overlap between the units people complain about being OP, and the units people are trying to "protect". Both Guardsmen squads and Tactical Squads can come in groups of ten. Are guardsmen "horde" while marines are "elite", yet still the same squad size?
Its why I suggested using keywords to denote what type of unit they are. Every unit gets a keyword along the lines of Horde, Line, and Elite, and then some weapons that are supposed to be good at taking out hordes can get a buff vs units with the Horde keyword and a minor malus vs units with the Elite keyword. Horde units would be units that work largely by weight of numbers - Ork Boyz, Conscripts, Gaunts, etc, while Line units would be things like Fire Warriors, Skitarii, Space Marine Scouts and the like. Elites would be more expensive units, like Tac Marines, Chaos Marines, Stealth Suits, and so on.
I hate to lean on the fluff as an excuse, but on average, a unit of Tactical Marines is more heavily trained, battle experienced, and so on than your average squad of Guardsmen, so even if there is 10 of both of them, it would make sense that the Tactical Marine knows how to minimize the damage from some weapons compared to the Guard. Taking a Plasma round to the face will kill both regardless, but the Marine knows when to move, how to take quick cover in the surroundings, and minimize their profile enough to help them take less overall damage from the lighter weapons. That would translate to crunch with say a flamer dealing 1d3 hits vs Elites, 1d6 vs Line, and 2d6 vs Horde.
Giving everything a keyword, and deciding what gets what keyword would be difficult and take time, but after it is done, weapons and abilities can then be more easily balanced around their own niche, and a tac list would have to take a little of everything in order to cover its bases.
I get where this is coming from but I find it mechanically questionable as it's A: not particularly intuitive and B: I find the adding of keywords to be cumbersome. For a different type of game this would be good, but for 40K it feels not accessible enough. 8th is so streamlined with it's stats/datasheets and I'd hate to disrupt that.
Fair enough, I just find it more intuitive than several of the suggestions in this thread, but I do agree that it could get cumbersome and somewhat gamey.
Insectum7 wrote:Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Fully agreed here - some units are more about their ability to take up space and deny space than their damage output, while others are good at backfield support, being difficult to shift with just enough damage output that they can contribute to the fight, and so on.
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Nobody cares about morale checks. Morale is a useless mechanic just like in last edition.
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Nobody cares about morale checks. Morale is a useless mechanic just like in last edition.
Then it's no wonder why you'd be having problems.
It isn't my fault your opponents let morale checks happen nilly-willy. That's exactly what I'm talking about with your casual as all hell meta.
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Sorry but... what?
I can sort of see what you mean with this - sniping a unit holding an objective is more valuable than just thinning a herd.
But at a certain point "points removed" equals threat removal. You will take less damage next turn as a result. This is valuable in any game that is competitive and isn't a duck hunt "Im going to hide on objectives and hope by some miracle you screw up the maelstrom".
As for Spoletta... you are kidding yourself.
Yes mass low S/AP shooting kills hordes. Yes a 35% return (if you actually get that without contrived units like Aggressors) is nice.
But there are units which get incredible returns versus MEQ. That utterly roast Primaris (see what a Ravager does to a unit of Aggressors as an example). That have a reasonable chance of getting their points back in one round of shooting versus vehicles etc.
There is nothing that comes close to doing that versus guardsmen. This is what we mean about a hard counter. A scissors to their paper. A "I have a thousand points worth of this, and you bought a massed Catachan/Straken list? Well your screwed mate". Now you might say this is bad for the game, and I might even agree with you, but right now you have a system where one set of units has a hard counter, and one does not. Its not surprising that those units dominate the meta.
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Sorry but... what?
I can sort of see what you mean with this - sniping a unit holding an objective is more valuable than just thinning a herd.
But at a certain point "points removed" equals threat removal. You will take less damage next turn as a result. This is valuable in any game that is competitive and isn't a duck hunt "Im going to hide on objectives and hope by some miracle you screw up the maelstrom".
Funny you should mention that, because killing 6 guardsmen seems to remove more "threat" than killing 2 marines, even though the marines cost more. So right there, points do not translate too "threat".
Points removed is a shortcut for purposes of quantifying, but is not wholly accurate, nor useful for turn by turn choices. It's not a good representation for how the game is played.
There is nothing that comes close to doing that versus guardsmen. This is what we mean about a hard counter. A scissors to their paper. A "I have a thousand points worth of this, and you bought a massed Catachan/Straken list? Well your screwed mate". Now you might say this is bad for the game, and I might even agree with you, but right now you have a system where one set of units has a hard counter, and one does not. Its not surprising that those units dominate the meta.
Are hordes truly "dominating the meta"? Or are Guardsmen just an incredibly valuable speedbump taken in armies where other units are doing the heavy lifting?
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Nobody cares about morale checks. Morale is a useless mechanic just like in last edition.
Then it's no wonder why you'd be having problems.
It isn't my fault your opponents let morale checks happen nilly-willy. That's exactly what I'm talking about with your casual as all hell meta.
Morale is a thing, especially for guardsmen. If you're not taking advantage of that I'm sorry you're wasting firepower, I guess.
I agree that horde infantry is more powerful than elite infantry, but it seems that the problem is being somewhat overstated. Horde infantry like Chaos Cultists, Guardsmen, and little Tyranids are incredibly easy to kill. My entirely non-competitive Space Marine 1st Company army can trivially kill 40+ Guardsmen a turn, and my only slightly more competitive Steel Legion army can kill their fellow Guardsmen at an even faster rate. 30 Guardsmen might as well be 0 Guardsmen for all the impact they have once the dice start rolling.
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Sorry but... what?
I can sort of see what you mean with this - sniping a unit holding an objective is more valuable than just thinning a herd.
But at a certain point "points removed" equals threat removal. You will take less damage next turn as a result. This is valuable in any game that is competitive and isn't a duck hunt "Im going to hide on objectives and hope by some miracle you screw up the maelstrom".
As for Spoletta... you are kidding yourself.
Yes mass low S/AP shooting kills hordes. Yes a 35% return (if you actually get that without contrived units like Aggressors) is nice.
But there are units which get incredible returns versus MEQ. That utterly roast Primaris (see what a Ravager does to a unit of Aggressors as an example). That have a reasonable chance of getting their points back in one round of shooting versus vehicles etc.
There is nothing that comes close to doing that versus guardsmen. This is what we mean about a hard counter. A scissors to their paper. A "I have a thousand points worth of this, and you bought a massed Catachan/Straken list? Well your screwed mate". Now you might say this is bad for the game, and I might even agree with you, but right now you have a system where one set of units has a hard counter, and one does not. Its not surprising that those units dominate the meta.
There are many many units who reach that 35%, aggressors are just the best of them and reach close to 75%.
What you are highlighting is not a problem with hordes, but a problem with anti elite fire being too efficent.
Saber wrote: I agree that horde infantry is more powerful than elite infantry, but it seems that the problem is being somewhat overstated. Horde infantry like Chaos Cultists, Guardsmen, and little Tyranids are incredibly easy to kill. My entirely non-competitive Space Marine 1st Company army can trivially kill 40+ Guardsmen a turn, and my only slightly more competitive Steel Legion army can kill their fellow Guardsmen at an even faster rate. 30 Guardsmen might as well be 0 Guardsmen for all the impact they have once the dice start rolling.
Well the thing is those horde dudes are always run with some custodes, knights, multiple tyrants or a shadowsword etc while an elite army, even if someone wanted, won't be able to fit those good units in. A horde army sacrifices nothing substential to take those options.
How do you clear 40 guardsman with termintors? You would have to go first, them to not have cover or LoS blocking terrain. You can't deep strike turn 1, and in cover have buffed save.
Well, they are basically both anti-infantry weapons, so it does somewhat make sense that they wound at the same rate, but the wounds don't stick at the same rate - Infantry (bumped to 6+) and Gaunts (bumped to 7+) are more likely to fail their save than Marines (bumped to 4+). Alter somewhat the rate of fire vs the Horde units though, and they will take more wounds and fail more saves on average than the more Elite units.
the thing is we aren't playing with a 1000 marines on a table or more, and with a 50% chance to fail a safe at a cost higher then 50% comparing to a guant or an IG dude, the marines are very inefficient. And that is just normal marines, am not talking about real elite stuff that has t4 and 1 wound, and costs 20pts or higher.
Wait, you mean the Tac Marine spam likely wasn't representative of anything outside of formation based play?
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Sorry but... what?
I can sort of see what you mean with this - sniping a unit holding an objective is more valuable than just thinning a herd.
But at a certain point "points removed" equals threat removal. You will take less damage next turn as a result. This is valuable in any game that is competitive and isn't a duck hunt "Im going to hide on objectives and hope by some miracle you screw up the maelstrom".
Funny you should mention that, because killing 6 guardsmen seems to remove more "threat" than killing 2 marines, even though the marines cost more. So right there, points do not translate too "threat".
Points removed is a shortcut for purposes of quantifying, but is not wholly accurate, nor useful for turn by turn choices. It's not a good representation for how the game is played.
There is nothing that comes close to doing that versus guardsmen. This is what we mean about a hard counter. A scissors to their paper. A "I have a thousand points worth of this, and you bought a massed Catachan/Straken list? Well your screwed mate". Now you might say this is bad for the game, and I might even agree with you, but right now you have a system where one set of units has a hard counter, and one does not. Its not surprising that those units dominate the meta.
Are hordes truly "dominating the meta"? Or are Guardsmen just an incredibly valuable speedbump taken in armies where other units are doing the heavy lifting?
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Nobody cares about morale checks. Morale is a useless mechanic just like in last edition.
Then it's no wonder why you'd be having problems.
It isn't my fault your opponents let morale checks happen nilly-willy. That's exactly what I'm talking about with your casual as all hell meta.
Morale is a thing, especially for guardsmen. If you're not taking advantage of that I'm sorry you're wasting firepower, I guess.
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Sorry but... what?
I can sort of see what you mean with this - sniping a unit holding an objective is more valuable than just thinning a herd.
But at a certain point "points removed" equals threat removal. You will take less damage next turn as a result. This is valuable in any game that is competitive and isn't a duck hunt "Im going to hide on objectives and hope by some miracle you screw up the maelstrom".
Funny you should mention that, because killing 6 guardsmen seems to remove more "threat" than killing 2 marines, even though the marines cost more. So right there, points do not translate too "threat".
Points removed is a shortcut for purposes of quantifying, but is not wholly accurate, nor useful for turn by turn choices. It's not a good representation for how the game is played.
There is nothing that comes close to doing that versus guardsmen. This is what we mean about a hard counter. A scissors to their paper. A "I have a thousand points worth of this, and you bought a massed Catachan/Straken list? Well your screwed mate". Now you might say this is bad for the game, and I might even agree with you, but right now you have a system where one set of units has a hard counter, and one does not. Its not surprising that those units dominate the meta.
Are hordes truly "dominating the meta"? Or are Guardsmen just an incredibly valuable speedbump taken in armies where other units are doing the heavy lifting?
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Nobody cares about morale checks. Morale is a useless mechanic just like in last edition.
Then it's no wonder why you'd be having problems.
It isn't my fault your opponents let morale checks happen nilly-willy. That's exactly what I'm talking about with your casual as all hell meta.
Morale is a thing, especially for guardsmen. If you're not taking advantage of that I'm sorry you're wasting firepower, I guess.
No morale isn't a thing. Quit acting like it is.
Infantry Squads are leadership 7 by themselves, they need either a commisar or for CP to be spent on them for morale to become a non factor. Morale is very much a thing because if Guard lists didn't take steps to limit morale damage they would suffer heavily from it , if morale was really a non factor no one would even bother with those countermeasures and would just spend the points and CP on other things.
"No morale isn't a thing. Quit acting like it is."
I could just quote the rulebook to prove that wrong, but it's not on me atm. You're going to need to do better than "nuh uhh" if you're trying to convince anyone other than yourself.
Morale can be sidestepped, sometimes easily, but almost always at a cost. The cost is greater for some than others, but morale remains a factor regardless, especially if you're trying to optimize for removing lots of models. Guardsmen with their min squad of 9/10 and lower Ld. Are easily affected by morale.
Funny you should mention that, because killing 6 guardsmen seems to remove more "threat" than killing 2 marines, even though the marines cost more.
Yes, because marines suck and are overcosted!
That's not a counterpoint. That's just a whine.
You could plink off the same "points worth" of a Razorback, and do nothing to mitigate it's threat level for the following turn. "Points removed" is a dumb metric for tactical decisions, with the partial exception of missions that score based on points removed.
Saber wrote: I agree that horde infantry is more powerful than elite infantry, but it seems that the problem is being somewhat overstated. Horde infantry like Chaos Cultists, Guardsmen, and little Tyranids are incredibly easy to kill. My entirely non-competitive Space Marine 1st Company army can trivially kill 40+ Guardsmen a turn, and my only slightly more competitive Steel Legion army can kill their fellow Guardsmen at an even faster rate. 30 Guardsmen might as well be 0 Guardsmen for all the impact they have once the dice start rolling.
Well the thing is those horde dudes are always run with some custodes, knights, multiple tyrants or a shadowsword etc while an elite army, even if someone wanted, won't be able to fit those good units in. A horde army sacrifices nothing substential to take those options.
How do you clear 40 guardsman with termintors? You would have to go first, them to not have cover or LoS blocking terrain. You can't deep strike turn 1, and in cover have buffed save.
This is a tactic specific to my army, but what I do is drop in my Crimson Fist Terminators, play the Bolter Drill stratagem, give them +1 to hit from the Rhino Primaris, and maybe the benefits of my Land Raider Excelsior and Lieutenant. This generates roughly 30 kills from the Storm Bolters, plus whatever the Assault Cannon contribute, plus fire from my Sternguard. If I concentrate all of my fire on killing infantry I could probably kill 50 or more on average, plus whatever I get from morale and assault. Obviously it's dependent on terrain and deployment etc., but I've done it enough times that I know I easily overkill 40-man cultist squads.
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Sorry but... what?
I can sort of see what you mean with this - sniping a unit holding an objective is more valuable than just thinning a herd.
But at a certain point "points removed" equals threat removal. You will take less damage next turn as a result. This is valuable in any game that is competitive and isn't a duck hunt "Im going to hide on objectives and hope by some miracle you screw up the maelstrom".
Funny you should mention that, because killing 6 guardsmen seems to remove more "threat" than killing 2 marines, even though the marines cost more. So right there, points do not translate too "threat".
Points removed is a shortcut for purposes of quantifying, but is not wholly accurate, nor useful for turn by turn choices. It's not a good representation for how the game is played.
There is nothing that comes close to doing that versus guardsmen. This is what we mean about a hard counter. A scissors to their paper. A "I have a thousand points worth of this, and you bought a massed Catachan/Straken list? Well your screwed mate". Now you might say this is bad for the game, and I might even agree with you, but right now you have a system where one set of units has a hard counter, and one does not. Its not surprising that those units dominate the meta.
Are hordes truly "dominating the meta"? Or are Guardsmen just an incredibly valuable speedbump taken in armies where other units are doing the heavy lifting?
Insectum7 wrote: Imo "points removed" is not a very reliable metric. It's easily quantifiable but game-wise it doesn't translate linearly to "value". Killing 6 Guardsmen feels more valuable than killing 2 marines on the tabletop. You've gone through over half the squad, forced a decent morale check and you can knock the rest out with "secondary fire" or possibly ignore the squad. Killing two marines rarely achieves much in a tactical sense.
Nobody cares about morale checks. Morale is a useless mechanic just like in last edition.
Then it's no wonder why you'd be having problems.
It isn't my fault your opponents let morale checks happen nilly-willy. That's exactly what I'm talking about with your casual as all hell meta.
Morale is a thing, especially for guardsmen. If you're not taking advantage of that I'm sorry you're wasting firepower, I guess.
No morale isn't a thing. Quit acting like it is.
Infantry Squads are leadership 7 by themselves, they need either a commisar or for CP to be spent on them for morale to become a non factor. Morale is very much a thing because if Guard lists didn't take steps to limit morale damage they would suffer heavily from it , if morale was really a non factor no one would even bother with those countermeasures and would just spend the points and CP on other things.
Insectum7 wrote:
"No morale isn't a thing. Quit acting like it is."
I could just quote the rulebook to prove that wrong, but it's not on me atm. You're going to need to do better than "nuh uhh" if you're trying to convince anyone other than yourself.
Morale can be sidestepped, sometimes easily, but almost always at a cost. The cost is greater for some than others, but morale remains a factor regardless, especially if you're trying to optimize for removing lots of models. Guardsmen with their min squad of 9/10 and lower Ld. Are easily affected by morale.
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You know, I have been mostly thinking about morale in terms of Guard, where it most definitely is a thing, but, some of the other Horde armies actually CAN ignore morale. Orks can basically make themselves fearless, and Tyranids in Synapse (which will be most Tyranids until the Synapse creatures have been killed) also lose nothing to morale. Space Marines are usually taken in small squads, where their reroll of morale means that they are unlikely to lose anything - and that is about half of the armies in the game. I'm not overly familiar with Necrons, but they have a high base leadership, though I don't know if they have any ways of buffing it.
I suppose in that context I can see why people think morale does nothing.
