Hi All,
Just a pure imagination-hammer discussion point for us today. I've been thinking about all of the cantankerousness surrounding the current state of the game, and enjoying all of the recent threads regarding how it could be fixed. Having started the hobby in the heady days of 6th ed WHFB, one of the ways to curtail list optimisation that involved taking as many of X units as possible was to give different elements of the army a % minimum (Troops) and a % maximum (everything else) proportion of whatever points level you were playing. For example, in a 2000 point game, you have a 25% minimum requirement for troops, ≥ 500pts of troops.

Given the changes to detachments, troops have again become an increasingly rare species. In both of my armies (DG and SoB) troops are an increasingly rare sight. Most DG tournament lists take minimum squads of Poxwalkers, perhaps making up 150-200pts of a list, with SoB lists often taking only 1-2 squads of Sisters (55-110pts)!

It got me thinking regarding the effect on the game if we had a 25% minimum on troops for list-building. Keeping Ob-Sec to spice it up, it got me thinking:
1) Which factions have the best troops?
2) Which armies would be the big winners and losers (and break-even-ers) if there was such a requirement?

Pure Imagination-hammer, but I thought I'd engage you in this fascinating flight of fancy, particularly given if speaks to the perennial issue of what troops should do in 40k!

To kick us off, I think a big winner would be Daemons, who have fantastic troops that really get to the heart of each god, usually doing that job better than the Elite, FA, and HS choices. A big loser would be SoB. Sisters have one troop choice that really doesn't do much, and 80% (yes, hyperbole) of every list is dedicated to packing in as many Elites choices as possible. Custodes, I imagine, would break even, mainly because I don't know what Custodes do, but whatever they do they seem to do it quietly.

What do you guys think?

 TonyH122 wrote:
Hi All,
Having started the hobby in the heady days of 6th ed WHFB, one of the ways to curtail list optimisation that involved taking as many of X units as possible was to give different elements of the army a % minimum (Troops) and a % maximum (everything else) proportion of whatever points level you were playing. For example, in a 2000 point game, you have a 25% minimum requirement for troops, ≥ 500pts of troops.

You know that doesn't curtail the optimization, right? All it does is set different parameters for what's optimal.

You don't make things desirable by forcing people to take undesirable things.

You need to make them desirable.

It's a thing we discuss every now and again in the Proposed Rules section. I don't like it because:

A.) It favors armies with better troops.
B.) It neuters a lot of thematic lists (ex: Death Wing, Saim-Hann, Iybraesil)
C.) What is and isn't a troop in 40k is really arbitrary. See: marine terminators being elites but GK termies are troops.

Troops should be desirable on their own merits. Not because you're forced to take them.

 Lance845 wrote:
You don't make things desirable by forcing people to take undesirable things.

You need to make them desirable.

I wish someone would tell that to the dolt in charge of CSM/Cultist balance.

The lack of troops in the game is something I dislike too, but forcing troops into lists isn't the way to go.

You are forcing certain purchases in an hobby which is based around making the list YOU want. Remember that this is hobby first, game later.

What you can and should do though is to make them desiderable.
Troops though should never be better than elite units, or try to be better. If you do that you will always have one being the best and the other forgotten on the shelf.

Troops should be weaker and less efficient, but play more into the core elements of the faction.
Rubrics are the perfect examples of this. They are not very good, but tie very well with the psy/cabal theme of the army and provide powers and points on the cheap. You see lists taking a lot more rubrics than just the minimum tax.
Admech also made very good use of troops, because they are faction with lots of targeted buffs and troops have a high model count. This also works.

These are the things that works.
For example, I think that marines will never use troops like this. Troops in marines are just more boring versions of the elite ones for a few points less. There is nothing special about them.What I would like to see is having all marine troops being always under all doctrines. Now you gave them a role. All the other marine units have a turn in which they shine, while the troops do their work regularly every turn.

Plague Marines should interact better with the contagion mechanic.

Boyz should get more durable when WHAAAGH is called.

These are the kind of interactions that make troops look like troops. They are not very special per se, but are the ones most integrated in the army structure and so interact better with its theme.

Additionally, I think that they should be encouraged on mission level.
Objective secured is a good first step, but I would also add the following secondary:

High value targets: At the end of the game, score 1 point for every non-troop enemy units that were destroyed during the game. Score instead 2 points if the unit destroyed had a power level of 10 or more.

This way if you play very few troops you open yourself to this secondary.

I agree with what people are saying, it's attacking the symptoms rather than the cause. I do think Troops should be really common, but I feel like they are common enough already, I don't necessarily want them to be the backbone in most armies, just present in most armies. In WHFB I think it was fitting that Troops were the backbone of every army and not just present, 40k also has balance updates that can fix issues, where as WHFB sometimes needed to force people to take bad units because there weren't a lot of opportunities to make bad units viable.

 TonyH122 wrote:
1) Which factions have the best troops?
2) Which armies would be the big winners and losers (and break-even-ers) if there was such a requirement?

1) Grey Knight Strike Squads, Necron Warriors, Thousand Sons Rubric Marines, Space Marine Infiltrators and Intercessors, Adeptus Mechanicus Rangers and Vanguard.

2) Adeptus Mechanicus, Genestealer Cults, Tyranids, Necrons and Harlequins are winners. Drukhari, Thousand Sons and Grey Knights break-even. Astra Militarum, Craftworlds, Knights, Tau Empire, Orks, CSM and SM are losers.

 TonyH122 wrote:


What do you guys think?

I don't like it. Some armies have 6+ troops, including heavy hitters and elite style units, others have one or two, mostly crap units.

I'd certainly prefer % infantry requirement instead, if we really have to go down that route. Based on points, not number of units. But overall I prefer leaving things as they are, in order to convince people to field more troops a bonus for scoring objectives could simply do it.

Agree with all the others, don't like it either.

Armies are not created equally, some rely more on elites, other more on fast attack and some have decent choices in every slot. In recent years the distribution of new units to slots also has been quite random.
When your army isn't taking troops, it's because your troops choices are bad.
There are still plenty of armies out there that aren't trying to dodge their way around troops at any cost, so it's not a game-wide issue. Which also means that it shouldn't be resolved by a game-wide rule.

If DG aren't running plague marines because pox walkers are better for defending and terminators are better at attacking, maybe plague marines need some help.

 Eldarain wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
You don't make things desirable by forcing people to take undesirable things.

You need to make them desirable.

I wish someone would tell that to the dolt in charge of CSM/Cultist balance.

In before gw nerfs cultists to death by non obsec and 1:1 ratio..

OK, just to clarify, I was not suggesting this at all. The point of the thread was more to brainstorm who has the best troops, what makes these troops the best, to come to greater clarity concerning what design troops should strive towards in their planning. Never did I suggest that this was a good idea. It just was something GW did, and it just got me thinking about the function troops should fill.

A healthy game, to my mind, is one where you would want to take the units we are all but forced to take.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:
It's a thing we discuss every now and again in the Proposed Rules section. I don't like it because:

A.) It favors armies with better troops.
B.) It neuters a lot of thematic lists (ex: Death Wing, Saim-Hann, Iybraesil)
C.) What is and isn't a troop in 40k is really arbitrary. See: marine terminators being elites but GK termies are troops.

Troops should be desirable on their own merits. Not because you're forced to take them.

Hmm, given that the point of the thread has been misinterpreted, I'll note that I was generally interested in what underlies A: what makes a troop good in the context of an army.

Daemons, for example, place a huge emphasis on troops, just insofar as they generally do broadly the same thing that the units in other detachment slots do, but better. That's not good design. So this, like many other examples, begs the question: What role should troops fill?.

See, I don't think "troops" should really fill one specific role at all. Some troops should be cost-effective damage dealers. Some should provide support for other units. Some should just be cheap objective campers.

What ends up in the "troop" battlefield role is pretty arbitrary, and trying to paint all such units with the same brush seems kind of moot.

I feel like armies that actually *like* taking their troops tend to either have really cheap troops or else don't have a lot of units that beat the troops at their own game. So for instance, harlequins are good because they're one of the most effective damage-dealing non-characters in their small codex. Rubrics are good because they don't have a lot of competition for the same job, and they add psychic powers and cabal points to your army. Plague marines don't have a ton of of competition in their role in the DG 'dex (the closest thing is probably terminators which are pricey), and pox walkers have a pretty unique statline and niche as well. And then you have things like rippers and guardsmen that are dirt cheap.

In contrast, my craftworlders don't love spending points on troops. Our troops aren't durable enough to hold objectives, and they're generally less killy than our non-troop options. Same with loyalist marines; intercessors and first born aren't bad, but their non-troops generally put out more damage point-for-point.

Survivability is also a big factor. Not just in the sense that the unit can sit on an objective and take a punch, but in the sense that the troop can do its job if you take more than one of them. My drukhari and harlequin troops can hide inside of transports (while still shooting out of them) until they're ready to hop out. Marines and hordes are generally durable enough to not evaporate if you have them walk up the table. But my craftworld troops can't really contribute while they hide inside a transport, and they can't survive outside the transport unless I'm pumping stratagems and/or psychic powers into them.

Plague marines aren't considered a good troops option though, precisely because terminators do the exact same thing, up to having the same weapons, but are much harder to kill.

It's difficult to say what exactly they are lacking, most likely they are just too expensive for how quickly they when shot at with the right weapons.

As for orks, there already is a whole thread about it, but the short summary is that neither gretchin nor boyz are worth their points by a long shot. Since almost all ork stratagems are useless, spending CP to not bring troops is just the better option. You also can't make them cheaper, because otherwise orks will revert to codex:tide of boyz.

What really REALLY REALLY REALLY needs to happen is GW just needs to have army types broadly defined, and you pick one at the beginning of list creation.

Want to run a Speed Freaks/Mechdar/Mechtau/Ghost Ark/whatever army? Have something like "Mechanized: Transports count as troops if bought alongside any INFANTRY unit."

Want to run a Monster Mash list for Tyranids or Daemons? "Monstrous Horrors: 0-3 units of Monsters count as Troops in addition to (or maybe instead of) their original slot."

Want to run a tank company/fast attack company/whathaveyou? "Rolling Thunder: 0-3 Vehicle units count as troops in addition to (or maybe instead of) their original slot."

etc. etc.

Right now, the game is trying to come up with standard "detachments" and a standard way of building an army, whilst simultaneously fitting in everything from valkyrie air cavalry lists (rip) to tank companies to infantry hordes to cavalry units to gigantic monsters to tiny mutants to superheavy walkers....

But doesn't your suggestion have the same kind of "one size fits all" problem that detachments have?

It also takes away the one reason to bring troops at all, which is objective secured.

If I understood the AoS system correctly, that's probably the way to go. No longer divide units by arbitrarily assigned battlefield roles, but divide them by how common they are on the battlefield, possibly with additional restrictions to "shape" armies like requiring DG to actually bring DG.

 Jidmah wrote:
But doesn't your suggestion have the same kind of "one size fits all" problem that detachments have?

It also takes away the one reason to bring troops at all, which is objective secured.

If I understood the AoS system correctly, that's probably the way to go. No longer divide units by arbitrarily assigned battlefield roles, but divide them by how common they are on the battlefield, possibly with additional restrictions to "shape" armies like requiring DG to actually bring DG.

Yeah it probably does; GW would have to be pretty broad with the army types.

I don't think the AOS solution works either though, as some armies don't care what the most common type of unit on the field is for that faction. Iybraesil (for example) would probably count Howling Banshees as "the most common type of unit on the field" while Iyanden would count "wraithguard", Alaitoc rangers, Biel-Tan Dire Avengers, etc.

Even within just the eldar there's a huge amount of diversity in army type. We're in "pick your favorite unit, it's now a troop" land, essentially.

Just make some factions able to take thematic units as troops, EZPZ.

Don't just give obsec, make them full-on troops.

White scars/ravenwing bikers
deathwing terminators
Night lords Raptors
Blood angels Assault Squads
etc.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Just make some factions able to take thematic units as troops, EZPZ.

Don't just give obsec, make them full-on troops.

White scars/ravenwing bikers
deathwing terminators
Night lords Raptors
Blood angels Assault Squads
etc.

So for Imperial Guard, do Leman Russes or Infantry Squads get to be troops, or both? When is a Russ Heavy Support and when is it a Troop?

Or should Armored Company be its own faction?

I have mentioned this before.

Why not Rites of War from 30k?

You take certain leaders, you use certain faction keywords, you meet certain requirements, and it opens up options for changing units roles and restricting others.

Tyranid Skyblight Swarm, where Hive Tyrants have to have wings, Shrikes and sky slashers can be taken as troops in addition to FA. Raveners and the Red Terror, Trygons and Mawlocs cannot be taken in the detachment.

So on and so forth.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Just make some factions able to take thematic units as troops, EZPZ.

Don't just give obsec, make them full-on troops.

White scars/ravenwing bikers
deathwing terminators
Night lords Raptors
Blood angels Assault Squads
etc.

So for Imperial Guard, do Leman Russes or Infantry Squads get to be troops, or both? When is a Russ Heavy Support and when is it a Troop?

Or should Armored Company be its own faction?

why not? Its not like the rule of 3 is preventing them from spamming Russes anyway

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Just make some factions able to take thematic units as troops, EZPZ.

Don't just give obsec, make them full-on troops.

White scars/ravenwing bikers
deathwing terminators
Night lords Raptors
Blood angels Assault Squads
etc.

So for Imperial Guard, do Leman Russes or Infantry Squads get to be troops, or both? When is a Russ Heavy Support and when is it a Troop?

Or should Armored Company be its own faction?

why not? Its not like the rule of 3 is preventing them from spamming Russes anyway

Why not make Leman Russes troops?

Doesn't that sort of put the kabosh onto the entire idea of troops anyways? I mean, other factions have tank companies (e.g. Tau); should they get main battle tanks as troops? Should we just make everything a troop and THERE ARE NO RULES (imagine the ripped shirt! )?

The only things I can think of that are actually not "troops" to some faction or another in the galaxy are Lords of War.

A unit can still be the most common one in your army if you just run 3 of them. Beyond that it usually becomes a skew list that either is ridiculously strong or falls flat on its face anyways.

GW sent a rather clear message that people who spam units can go feth themselves and that they will continue to implement rules that screw over anyone who does.

 Jidmah wrote:
A unit can still be the most common one in your army if you just run 3 of them. Beyond that it usually becomes a skew list that either is ridiculously strong or falls flat on its face anyways.

GW sent a rather clear message that people who spam units can go feth themselves and that they will continue to implement rules that screw over anyone who does.

Well, we should distinguish here between "skew" and "lists that are thematic"

An Iyanden list with 2 spiritseers and a bazillion wrathguard/wraithblades/Wraithlords/Wraithknights/wraithwraiths isn't really skew, nor is an Imperial Guard list focusing on veterans-as-troops rather than infantry squads.

It's also possible to have a thematic list that's both skew and thematic - the aforementioned Armored Company comes to mind, as does the Ork Buggy list. Skew is a rules term, whilst "theme" is not.

Should the "troops" of an army be defined by its theme/the commonality of units in the lore, or should it be a rules effort to prevent skew?

If it's the latter, then you're by definition going to be forcing people to take things they simply may not want to take - and you always will be, even if those units are the best units in the faction hands down.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


So for Imperial Guard, do Leman Russes or Infantry Squads get to be troops, or both? When is a Russ Heavy Support and when is it a Troop?

Or should Armored Company be its own faction?

40K used to have this, where if you took a bike captain then bikes would become troops. In this case, if you take a TC then the 1 squadron of LRs would become troops (then take them in a Spearhead and they'd all have ObSec )

In theory (not practically) the current Force Org and Rule of 3 is designed to limit going overboard on one kind of unit. The problem is preventing skew lists, like the ork flyer/buggy spam. For example Assuming IG LRBTs were somewhat balanced (ya, I know...), can you imagine taking on 12 of them? (3 TCs, 3x3 LR Squadrons), most army lists would just crumble under them, now we add another 3 in a Troop slot. Most armies wouldn't be prepared to take on 15 T8 2+ Sv. vehicles.

brainpsyk wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


So for Imperial Guard, do Leman Russes or Infantry Squads get to be troops, or both? When is a Russ Heavy Support and when is it a Troop?

Or should Armored Company be its own faction?

40K used to have this, where if you took a bike captain then bikes would become troops. In this case, if you take a TC then the 1 squadron of LRs would become troops (then take them in a Spearhead and they'd all have ObSec )

In theory (not practically) the current Force Org and Rule of 3 is designed to limit going overboard on one kind of unit. The problem is preventing skew lists, like the ork flyer/buggy spam. For example Assuming IG LRBTs were somewhat balanced (ya, I know...), can you imagine taking on 12 of them? (3 TCs, 3x3 LR Squadrons), most army lists would just crumble under them, now we add another 3 in a Troop slot. Most armies wouldn't be prepared to take on 15 T8 2+ Sv. vehicles.

Which gets to my question before:
Are troops something we force (or strongly encourage) people to take for rules purposes? This gets into "forcing people to take what they don't want to" territory, which is fine, but earlier we were talking about why that's bad.

Or are they a theme thing where we reward theme forces by allowing them to take more of <theme unit>.

when you make troops good, people play them and enjoy playing them (cough cough, feth cultists, long live rubrics).

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
when you make troops good, people play them and enjoy playing them (cough cough, feth cultists, long live rubrics).

Well, not people with theme lists (the aforementioned Armored Company is the hardest example but: )

Should an Iyanden army be forced to take anything other than Wraith units and spiritseers because of skew?
Should an IG Veterans army be forced to use Infantry squads because of skew?
Should a Necron Destroyer Cult be forced to take Warriors because of skew?

If not, where do you draw skew vs not skew? Are 5-man units of 3 T6 wounds skew, but 5 man units of 3 T5 wounds not? If 15 T6 3+/4++ wounds are not skew, why is 12 T8 3+ wounds? The former is harder to kill.

etc. etc.

For the Iyanden "theme" specifically, it's strange to me that fans seem to think Iyanden only has wraith units when they're depicted like this


It seems to be the natural impulse of people that "this unit name/type is mentioned in the fluff of this faction/subfaction, so this is the ONLY unit they use". I've fallen prey to it myself, before.

Destroyer Cult has this fluff

Members of the Destroyer Cult can be found on every Tomb World and been seen among every social class in Necron society.

Which says to me that, yes, there are probably warriors (and immortals, and deathmarks, and tomb blades!) in a Destroyer Cult themed army.

IG veterans should probably be troops, but I'm biased from 5th edition I guess.

Rihgu wrote:
For the Iyanden "theme" specifically, it's strange to me that fans seem to think Iyanden only has wraith units when they're depicted like this


It seems to be the natural impulse of people that "this unit name/type is mentioned in the fluff of this faction/subfaction, so this is the ONLY unit they use". I've fallen prey to it myself, before.

Destroyer Cult has this fluff

Members of the Destroyer Cult can be found on every Tomb World and been seen among every social class in Necron society.

Which says to me that, yes, there are probably warriors (and immortals, and deathmarks, and tomb blades!) in a Destroyer Cult themed army.

IG veterans should probably be troops, but I'm biased from 5th edition I guess.

Oh, I don't deny they can bring troops; that it isn't off theme or whatever. The question is should they be forced to.

 Jidmah wrote:

If I understood the AoS system correctly, that's probably the way to go. No longer divide units by arbitrarily assigned battlefield roles, but divide them by how common they are on the battlefield, possibly with additional restrictions to "shape" armies like requiring DG to actually bring DG.

Ehhh...the AoS system is a little too loose for people that haven't been used to it.

There's 5 "roles", per the new Core Battalion setup's notations:
Commanders are Leaders.
Sub-Commanders are Leaders with Wounds characteristics of less than 10.
Troops are units that are not Leaders, Artillery, or Behemoths.
Artillery are Artillery.
Monsters are Behemoths that are not Leaders.

With that in mind, there's a keyword that isn't listed there:
Battleline. Battleline is, for all intents and purposes, the "Troops" of AoS.

Between specific subfactions granting "Battleline" to units, specific Leader types granting "Battleline" to units...it would be a lot to bring it over to 40k. And you might still have to add special Core Battalions for certain books to really let them function in the way people would want them to, because certain combinations just aren't there in the CBs.

I think Skew versus Theme is a false dichotomy and not really what this is about.

You are a player. You have options. Should you be forced to take specific options in certain amounts or should you be able to use your options to build what you want to develope your own strategies?

I am not opposed to restrictions, though I think positive reinforcement is better. But in the end I think players being able to develop more of their own strategies instead of being forced into specific ones by the mechanics is better than not.

The issue is really , everyone wants the specials. No one one wants the basics.

What faction do you play? Troops are the faction. The HQ, support and elites etc... help the troops do their job.

Whats a banana split with no banana and no ice cream? Hotfudge and sprinkles, isnt a banana split.

 ImperialArmy wrote:
The issue is really , everyone wants the specials. No one one wants the basics.

What faction do you play? Troops are the faction. The HQ, support and elites etc... help the troops do their job.

Whats a banana split with no banana and no ice cream? Hotfudge and sprinkles, isnt a banana split.

This is a good view, imho, as is Lance's above. But it's natural for the players to gravitate towards the specials, so...

... are we leaning the opposite way from before now? Troops should be MANDATORY (or so strongly encouraged that players who take too-large numbers of other things suffer drawbacks)?

EDIT:
It's worth noting this dichotomy exists in other games as well (RE: "specialists" vs "regulars"). Historicon just ended, and I swear there wasn't a CoC or Big CoC game that didn't include paratroopers. They didn't have high winrates or anything, but paratroopers are "cool" and thusly were far more common in the games than they were in real life.

 ImperialArmy wrote:
The issue is really , everyone wants the specials. No one one wants the basics.

What faction do you play? Troops are the faction. The HQ, support and elites etc... help the troops do their job.

Whats a banana split with no banana and no ice cream? Hotfudge and sprinkles, isnt a banana split.

"I play Imperial Guard Armoured Company/Veteran Company - they have no troops."

Whether or not you'd consider "Imperial Guard Armoured Company" a valid "faction" can be up for debate.

I personally don't think any iteration of 40k/Warhammer Fantasy/AoS list building has been super great, because even when they force you to take units "out of theme", you can still go pretty nuts with non-core/non-basic/troops/whatever you want to call them units. AoS especially, unlocking conditional battleline based on generals or subfaction.

I'm not finding a uh, good way to word this, but I think part of the problem is that there are "bad" themes, both in game mechanics and fluff senses. Partially due to the limited scope of combats that 40k can portray.

just remove the force org altogether, we have the rule of 3 to prevent spam, let players bring what they want, slap "Obsec" as an ability on the datasheet of whatever you want.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Oh, I don't deny they can bring troops; that it isn't off theme or whatever. The question is should they be forced to.

They are not forced to now, they just pay extra CP not to.

If my opponent wants to play a weird list and we discuss it cool.

The list building guidelines are there for matched play.

I have problems with silly lists personally.
Either discuss with the people you play with or deal with matched play enforced rules. It is pretty simple.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
just remove the force org altogether, we have the rule of 3 to prevent spam, let players bring what they want, slap "Obsec" as an ability on the datasheet of whatever you want.

I don't disagree with this at heart. I think we'd want an availability per data sheet instead of a blanket rule of 3, and if I were calling all of the shots I'd add some kind of extra "value/cost" to certain models/wargear and limit how much of that you can bring. Basically, I'd use Infinity's list building system.

Taking a reaper chaincannon over a heavy bolter on a Havoc squad might cost you some amount of points but also 1 towards your "super deadly thing allotment". A multi-melta (on a different unit, I guess) might cost 2, or 3.

The issue is multifold, but there are a few main issues that are pretty hard to deal with.

First of all, many armies have multiple units that serve the same role. Which means that for that role, there will always be a best unit, leaving the rest in the dust. The classic example can be found in the Space Marines list where you always had the competition between tactical marines and scouts. Both basically serves the same roles which meant that there always was an optimal choice between them. And the more units armies get, the worse this issue becomes because, well, you will have more units for the same role leaving all the others behind and looking bad.

Secondly, GW games are notoriously bad at giving more generalist units a space. Because of a combination of manoeuvrability, ranges, line of sight, and control, there are few advantages a generalist unit has over a specialist one. That means that the more generalist units often lose out because you're better off just using specialists. I mean, why take a missile launcher over a lascannon. The latter is much better at its main task, while the missile launcher is stuck in the middle.

In every edition, there have been a few dominant weapons/units per army, and that's unlikely to change because the rosters are just so huge. Multiple units competing for the same role will always leave one dominant and that dominant unit will often be a specialist one.

Rihgu wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
just remove the force org altogether, we have the rule of 3 to prevent spam, let players bring what they want, slap "Obsec" as an ability on the datasheet of whatever you want.

I don't disagree with this at heart. I think we'd want an availability per data sheet instead of a blanket rule of 3, and if I were calling all of the shots I'd add some kind of extra "value/cost" to certain models/wargear and limit how much of that you can bring. Basically, I'd use Infinity's list building system.

Taking a reaper chaincannon over a heavy bolter on a Havoc squad might cost you some amount of points but also 1 towards your "super deadly thing allotment". A multi-melta (on a different unit, I guess) might cost 2, or 3.

yeah, same. I didnt wanna bring Infinity into it because i know some posters here automatically think its a gak argument because the one game of infinity they tried 3 editions ago gave them a bad impression. While we're at it, add a silhouette stat to make LoS cleaner

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Rihgu wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
just remove the force org altogether, we have the rule of 3 to prevent spam, let players bring what they want, slap "Obsec" as an ability on the datasheet of whatever you want.

I don't disagree with this at heart. I think we'd want an availability per data sheet instead of a blanket rule of 3, and if I were calling all of the shots I'd add some kind of extra "value/cost" to certain models/wargear and limit how much of that you can bring. Basically, I'd use Infinity's list building system.

Taking a reaper chaincannon over a heavy bolter on a Havoc squad might cost you some amount of points but also 1 towards your "super deadly thing allotment". A multi-melta (on a different unit, I guess) might cost 2, or 3.

yeah, same. I didnt wanna bring Infinity into it because i know some posters here automatically think its a gak argument because the one game of infinity they tried 3 editions ago gave them a bad impression. While we're at it, add a silhouette stat to make LoS cleaner

To be clear, I am the exact poster you just described, but in this specific respect I like Infinity

 vict0988 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Oh, I don't deny they can bring troops; that it isn't off theme or whatever. The question is should they be forced to.

They are not forced to now, they just pay extra CP not to.

So they're forced to, considering how CP straight up power up your army (or gives them any flavor whatsoever like CSM)

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

If not, where do you draw skew vs not skew?

Oh thats easy. Did you lose to it? If Yes, then scream "SKEW!" and hope GW F s the other guy over.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Oh, I don't deny they can bring troops; that it isn't off theme or whatever. The question is should they be forced to.

They are not forced to now, they just pay extra CP not to.

Ah, good catch, the one post where I forgot to add (*or strongly encourage) to the end.

So, add that to the end.

As mentioned, the problem is that the game isn't balanced. Some factions have really good troops, some have really good heavy support or really good fast attack etc. When you artificially limit them to what they can take you are creating an environment of the haves and have nots. We already have this to a degree but it is at least somewhat limited by allowing us to take whatever battlefield role we want.

Orkz at the moment are a have not faction in regards to troops. Grots are 5ppm and are objectively worse in every single way fathomable and by a large margin mind you, to a guardsmen. Boyz are good (ish), but are objectively worse than most other factions because we are arguably the only faction that really gives a damn about leadership. LD 7 in a mob of 30 means you kill 6 and I have a 83% chance to fail morale, lose a model, and then lose 4 more to attrition. You killed 6, morale killed 5. I just lost 45pts to a mechanic that a lot of other armies can safely ignore entirely.

So if you force me to take 500pts of Troops into a battle I am hamstrung from the start with being forced to take 500pts of sub par units that serve little purpose except to exist.

I like the idea of troops being more relevant, but the main problem is that until they are balanced all you are doing is creating a rule that actively hurts a lot of factions.

ccs wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

If not, where do you draw skew vs not skew?

Oh thats easy. Did you lose to it? If Yes, then scream "SKEW!" and hope GW F s the other guy over.

the most consistent definition of skew yet!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Oh, I don't deny they can bring troops; that it isn't off theme or whatever. The question is should they be forced to.

They are not forced to now, they just pay extra CP not to.

Ah, good catch, the one post where I forgot to add (*or strongly encourage) to the end.

So, add that to the end.

I didn't mean to be pedantic, I do think you should be strongly encouraged not to skew which is why I like the current system. I think a list with no Troops should be an option, but it should be the odd one out, not the average list. I think you might be overstating the benefit of 3CP or perhaps you're just looking at it from a competitive point of view. In 8th I've used lists with 4CP against lists with 9CP and occasionally in competitive games. The difference between 9 vs 12 (14 vs 17 T5) is relatively tiny compared to that. I paid 4CP to bring 3 Transcendent C'tan in 3 games in 9th, I wasn't forced to do anything and I don't mind if it is inefficient to spam Transcendent C'tan.

A skew list is one that deprives the enemy of relevant targets for their attacks. A list consisting entirely of vehicles or cheap infantry deprives the opponent of targets for anti-infantry and anti-vehicle weapons respectively. A single cheap vehicle or 3 cheap non-vehicle units that hide inside terrain or vehicles probably doesn't change the list from being skewed, it's a sliding scale. Having different vehicles or infantry with different weaknesses, like Monoliths and Ghost Arks or Flayed Ones and Skorpekh Destroyers makes a list less skewed even if it is 100% vehicles or 100% infantry. You could try to put a fine point on the dividing line between skew and non-skew, but then you'd need a whole bunch of exceptions for monsters with character protection inside infantry lists and such.

I think it could work if you just sort of made it so troops are the only guys who can control points, changed up what counts as troops, like bring back stuff like kommandos are troops in blood axes, and decrease the costs on transports back to like they used to be. I know that troops used to be great for hordes, but then especially for orks a lot of their base stat lines were decreased alongside access to buffs.

*shrug* that's a battle I'm not willing to fight. I think the current system is adequate in most respects, but the thread is about Imaginehammer, not about 9th. You're dead on about the benefit of CPs - some armies it's critical (CSM), other armies it's meh (R&H).

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
I think it could work if you just sort of made it so troops are the only guys who can control points, changed up what counts as troops, like bring back stuff like kommandos are troops in blood axes, and decrease the costs on transports back to like they used to be. I know that troops used to be great for hordes, but then especially for orks a lot of their base stat lines were decreased alongside access to buffs.

If only there were some sort of word that we could use to describe the importance of something to a battle plan.

Something like "key" or "core". Argh! Curses! It's a shame there is no such word!

Core just doesn’t work for some armies. Like, actually every ork unit would be core.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Core just doesn’t work for some armies. Like, actually every ork unit would be core.

Core as it stands now, sure. It's shotgunned all over the place.

If it were to be the "Battleline" equivalent? Different story.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Core just doesn’t work for some armies. Like, actually every ork unit would be core.

Core as it stands now, sure. It's shotgunned all over the place.

If it were to be the "Battleline" equivalent? Different story.

Aren't we just redefining "Troops" at that point?

I think we should call them "Battle-Line Core Archetype Troops Units" just to make things more complicated - er, I mean because there needs to be a standard language for this stuff!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Core just doesn’t work for some armies. Like, actually every ork unit would be core.

Core as it stands now, sure. It's shotgunned all over the place.

If it were to be the "Battleline" equivalent? Different story.

Aren't we just redefining "Troops" at that point?

I think we should call them "Battle-Line Core Archetype Troops Units" just to make things more complicated - er, I mean because there needs to be a standard language for this stuff!

No, because "Troops" would be literally anything that isn't a Monster, Vehicle/Artillery, or Leader.

Battleline is a caveat added to anything. There's usually a few Troop units with Battleline right off the bat, but subfactions+generals add the options for more.
Ol' One Eye leading a Core Battalion of Carnifexes? Oh boy! You've made them Battleline now.
Tank Commander as your army's General? Good on ya! Leman Russes are now Battleline.

Am I the only one who thinks the first step towards encouraging people to take more troops is taking the Objective Secured rules and throwing them into a furnace?

At best it's a weak clutch, at worst it does absolutely nothing except eat up a mountain of design space. Plus it's just a half-arsed version of the 5th edition rules, except changed to completely defeat the whole purpose of the rule it emulates.

Though, honestly, troops are yet another unit that suffers from 9th's design philosophies of 'kill' and 'kill moar!'. Having mechanics like suppressing fire or flanking could help troops be useful without needing to be the most killy.

 Kanluwen wrote:

There's 5 "roles", per the new Core Battalion setup's notations:
Commanders are Leaders.
Sub-Commanders are Leaders with Wounds characteristics of less than 10.

Aside, this about sums up why I can't stand AoS.

Want to be a leader? You have to be the size and girth of a three-story building (or at least be riding a mount with those proportions).

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Core just doesn’t work for some armies. Like, actually every ork unit would be core.

Core as it stands now, sure. It's shotgunned all over the place.

If it were to be the "Battleline" equivalent? Different story.

Aren't we just redefining "Troops" at that point?

I think we should call them "Battle-Line Core Archetype Troops Units" just to make things more complicated - er, I mean because there needs to be a standard language for this stuff!

No, because "Troops" would be literally anything that isn't a Monster, Vehicle/Artillery, or Leader.

Battleline is a caveat added to anything. There's usually a few Troop units with Battleline right off the bat, but subfactions+generals add the options for more.
Ol' One Eye leading a Core Battalion of Carnifexes? Oh boy! You've made them Battleline now.
Tank Commander as your army's General? Good on ya! Leman Russes are now Battleline.

Yeah, so Carnifexes and Russes become "troops but with another name".

Again, just remove the detachment system, does it truly balance the game anyway? just start at 12cp if you're monofaction, then pay x CP for each additionnal faction you add. That way we actually get more freedom to build whatever we want, and its not like the game is balanced with the detachment system anyway.

That was part of army selection in 2nd Edition.

If memory serves…..

Up To 25% on characters.

Minimum of 25% on Troops

Memory fades on the rest. The only 2nd Ed Codex I currently have is Imperial Guard, and they diverged some.

And…it really didn’t solve anything. People just min-maxed all the same. Because as others have said, restrictions don’t necessarily help. They don’t stop Powerful Combos. They just change what a Powerful Combo looks like.

That’s sadly a universal truth, no matter who is introducing the restriction. Any system is open to being broken or abused. I use both terms, as one can field an overly powerful list without having set out to create one.

To me? The key is ensuring that a decent chunk of infantry is a desirable thing within the framework of rules and missions.

 vipoid wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

There's 5 "roles", per the new Core Battalion setup's notations:
Commanders are Leaders.
Sub-Commanders are Leaders with Wounds characteristics of less than 10.

Aside, this about sums up why I can't stand AoS.

Want to be a leader? You have to be the size and girth of a three-story building (or at least be riding a mount with those proportions).

It's literally right there. Both are "Leaders".

% troop requirement is already kind of in the game, in the sense that patrol and battalion detachments both require troops and are the only ones that refund the first CP. Not sure a flat "25% of all points must be troops" would help.

dewd11 wrote:
% troop requirement is already kind of in the game, in the sense that patrol and battalion detachments both require troops and are the only ones that refund the first CP. Not sure a flat "25% of all points must be troops" would help.

Yes, but assuming I'm fine with the CP cost (I am), pI'm not required to run such a detachment.

I liked percentage minimums for standard force orgs. These can be changed for dfferent scenarios and so on which is interesting. I also figure that GW can use the categories alongside the percentage points requirements to make missions play well. So, right now, SoB seems to have one troop choice and this might be OK, as SoB should not be a force with the resources of a Marines or an Imp Guard, rather should be part of a dedicated soup Inquisition or Imperial array imho but this is beside the point. For SoB, for example, one thing that is possible is that SoB can take 50% of that 25% in other Imperial units, e.g. stormtoopers, guardsmen, yada. For other forces, some might be able to take 50% of that 25% in units from other categories. So, a heavy support centered force might be able to take 50% of troop 25% requirement in heavy support, in addition tot he 25% max in hvy support already permitted, etc... Anyways, I like the use of such limitations.

ccs wrote:

dewd11 wrote:
% troop requirement is already kind of in the game, in the sense that patrol and battalion detachments both require troops and are the only ones that refund the first CP. Not sure a flat "25% of all points must be troops" would help.

Yes, but assuming I'm fine with the CP cost (I am), pI'm not required to run such a detachment.

Agreed, and that most troops are overcosted when compared to specialist units for any given battlefield need.

Most armies dont use Troops for killing enemy troops, becasue most Troops lack the firepower/melee. Specialists are better for killing most infantry. Troops aren't good at killing tanks, but specialist units are. Same for HtH. So if we want something dead, then we take specialists that are actually good for doing that role. (You don't want to be the Pea Shooter in a Tank battle)

I think ObSec is one of the things that makes Troops worthwhile. So a potential fix is to make specialists *slightly* more expensive, where there's at least a trade-off/discussion. Make it like the Eradicators/Attack Bike discussion. Then there's at least a discussion.

Another potential fix is for GW to throw away their mentality of 1 special and/or heavy weapon in a squad (shooting or melee) (ya, I know...). GW took their squad requirements from the British squad formation in WWII (or something like that) which really doesn't have a place in the far future. If a Troop could have 2 heavy weapons in a squad of 5, that changes the discussion of devastators vs. Tacs. If devs were ~1-2ppm above tacs, tacs take 2 heavy weapons, devs get 4, ya, you can still get the 4 Hvy weapons in 1 squad, but you'll pay more for it.

Percentages are trash. Period.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
To me? The key is ensuring that a decent chunk of infantry is a desirable thing within the framework of rules and missions.

Just to re-iterate, this sentiment is entirely my point. There are a multitude of ways in which GW has forced us to take troops, with the result being that the 'role' of Troops becomes 'to take up 25% of the army' or 'to fill battalions', but this isn't a 'role' like for FA (fast!) or Heavy Support (...heavy support).

I look at Goonhammer's recent write-up of playing Tyranids with Synaptic Link and my heart skipped a beat when I saw the suggested list:
https://www.goonhammer.com/playing-tyranids-synaptic-link-leviathan-octarius/

It's packed with troop choices, and such a variety of them too!

Like other people in this thread, my spirit ascends when I see a Thousand Sons army full of Rubric Marines, or a Necron army lathered in Warriors. Even in the heady days of Chaos 3.5ed, with all the cheese available, I would always begin list building of my four god-armies with 4x god number units of the cult troops.

GW is working out a role for Troops finally with Ob Sec, but it doesn't seem enough. As people have noted, people take Troops in lists like the Tyranid one because they're the best units; not because they're Troops, because GW still doesn't know what 'Troops' are in a way that is comprehensible across armies.

Returning to another metaphor raised: Yes a banana split ain't a banana split without cream and sauce; but it also ain't a banana split without the banana! And, as you get older, a mouthfull of cream ceases starts to turn the stomach, and your mind starts to focus on the simple, pleasant benefits of the banana, whom you become wise enough to recognise as always being the star of the show.

 TonyH122 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
To me? The key is ensuring that a decent chunk of infantry is a desirable thing within the framework of rules and missions.

Just to re-iterate, this sentiment is entirely my point. There are a multitude of ways in which GW has forced us to take troops, with the result being that the 'role' of Troops becomes 'to take up 25% of the army' or 'to fill battalions', but this isn't a 'role' like for FA (fast!) or Heavy Support (...heavy support).

I look at Goonhammer's recent write-up of playing Tyranids with Synaptic Link and my heart skipped a beat when I saw the suggested list:
https://www.goonhammer.com/playing-tyranids-synaptic-link-leviathan-octarius/

It's packed with troop choices, and such a variety of them too!

Like other people in this thread, my spirit ascends when I see a Thousand Sons army full of Rubric Marines, or a Necron army lathered in Warriors. Even in the heady days of Chaos 3.5ed, with all the cheese available, I would always begin list building of my four god-armies with 4x god number units of the cult troops.

GW is working out a role for Troops finally with Ob Sec, but it doesn't seem enough. As people have noted, people take Troops in lists like the Tyranid one because they're the best units; not because they're Troops, because GW still doesn't know what 'Troops' are in a way that is comprehensible across armies.

Returning to another metaphor raised: Yes a banana split ain't a banana split without cream and sauce; but it also ain't a banana split without the banana! And, as you get older, a mouthfull of cream ceases starts to turn the stomach, and your mind starts to focus on the simple, pleasant benefits of the banana, whom you become wise enough to recognise as always being the star of the show.

Take a look at Orkz in 8th right up until the new Ghaz/boyz lists made their appearance. Ork players were taking either Triple battalions or a Brigade and a battalion, thats 9 troop choices minimum, but they were doing so with MSU Grot units instead of boyz, so it worked out to 270pts of Grots. Yeah it was 9 units, but it was 30pts for each one and they were functionally useless except to eat bullets for lootas or other key units.

Take a look at Orkz in 9th. I think i'm one of the few ork players in tournaments that is taking boyz, and I'm only taking 3 MSU boyz squads and only because I can make them Trukk Boyz. So i'm taking a grand total of...yup 270pts of "Troops" most Ork players are taking 0 and just taking the hit in CP. Orkz just don't seem to give a damn about ObSec and its kind of repeated through a lot of armies. Who cares about obsec when you can just kill your opponents units near an objective

brainpsyk wrote:

ccs wrote:

dewd11 wrote:
% troop requirement is already kind of in the game, in the sense that patrol and battalion detachments both require troops and are the only ones that refund the first CP. Not sure a flat "25% of all points must be troops" would help.

Yes, but assuming I'm fine with the CP cost (I am), pI'm not required to run such a detachment.

Agreed, and that most troops are overcosted when compared to specialist units for any given battlefield need.

Maybe/maybe not. I'll leave the debate about wether they're overcosted to you & others. You'll all post your math (often of questionable qualities) & it'll have nothing to do with why I & many others do/do not use troops here in 8th/9th.
I often play Necrons. I'm quite satisfied with my Warriors & Immortals. They work just fine. But I don't always use them. (probably in about 1/3 of my Matched games & in the opening weeks of our Crusades when I HAVE to field a Patrol Detachment)
Why? Because:
A) I own a lot of different Necron units & rotate what I use since I rarely play games large enough to put it all on the table at the same time. So I'll do troop heavy lists, fast detachments, heavy detachments, elite detachments, 100% Destroyer keyword lists, Canoptics, etc. Sure, I could put some warriors/immortals in one of my heavy/fast/elite etc detachments. But honestly? I'll have run out of points before I'm up to pondering including an out-of-theme unit of warriors.
B) I've been playing my Warriors & Immortals for 21-23 (24?) years. So I'm going to take plenty of advantage of the current detachment system that allows me to play other flavors of Necron lists while it lasts. It doesn't matter what the math says is optimal.

Likewise I'll do the same when building other factions.
I know that I'm not alone in building armies like this.

brainpsyk wrote:
Most armies dont use Troops for killing enemy troops, becasue most Troops lack the firepower/melee.

Lol.
Did you bring enough of whatever your smoking to share with the class?

brainpsyk wrote:
Specialists are better for killing most infantry. Troops aren't good at killing tanks, but specialist units are. Same for HtH. So if we want something dead, then we take specialists that are actually good for doing that role.

This is true. Specialists generally are better vs whatever they're specialized against. That's the point of having them.

ccs wrote:

brainpsyk wrote:
Most armies dont use Troops for killing enemy troops, becasue most Troops lack the firepower/melee.

Lol.
Did you bring enough of whatever your smoking to share with the class?

It was just a poor way of saying Troops are generalists, and are generally (not always) used for holding points and screening, rather than being the primary unit for killing your opponent.

example: DE Warriors vs Incubi (wyches are an exception), Intercessors & Tac marines vs. Aggressors & VanVets, IG infantry vs. Bullgryns/tanks. etc.

Tyranid Hormagaunts, Warriors, and Termagants are only bought with the intention of causing killing.

The only Nid troop I have ever bought in a list without the intention of killing is ripper swarms which I used to fill space in my back field to block out deep strikers.

In 7th ed, I used to bring 2 units of hormagaunts and versus my nephews Space Wolves they were solely responsible for killing his Santa Sled every single game we played. They would crush his HQ under weight of numbers EVERY time.

This discussion leads me back to a fundamental problem with GW's Match Play points assignments. They've broken down the points per model in a way that encourages min-maxing and discourages the use of thematic units.

Troops: No, thank you. I'll use the more focused units.
Upgraded Weapons Squads: Only when I can spam the heck out of the weapon efficiently.
Large Squads: Not when I can buy two squads with two leaders for the same points.

It's almost enough to make you nostalgic for 3rd Edition. Remember when upgraded unit leaders costed points and special/heavy weapons were cheaper in Troops squads than they were in specialist squads?

Pulling some of those old ideas into the current game would help give Troops a place in the game.

Then they went and classified a 'horde' as being anything 6 models and above, further encouraging small units, especially in troops.

Once upon a time GW had simple rules like '25% of your army must be Troops' and 'no more than 50% of your army can be any one slot'. Then we had a force organization chart that capped at three for each of the specialists and mandated two Troops. Now we have free-form do-whatever-you-want list composition and somehow people are surprised at tournament-winning lists that just spam specialists.

I'd support hard percentages for Matched Play just to limit skew and force armies to conform to a general structure of what a competitive 40K force looks like. Then I'd also like GW to make a game where Troops are actually valuable.

They did it with Fantasy- blocks of rank-and-file were great for rank bonuses, flanking the enemy, and plugging gaps / covering flanks, making them a force multiplier for more directly combat-oriented units. But Troops in 40K either fight well enough to be specialists in their own right, they're cheap enough that you can spam them to occupy the board and do little else, or they're not worth taking.

Maybe that's a side effect of a game system so shallow that the only ways units can contribute are by either directly killing the enemy or standing on objectives and not being killed. But we've already beaten that horse enough.

 catbarf wrote:
Once upon a time GW had simple rules like '25% of your army must be Troops' and 'no more than 50% of your army can be any one slot'. Then we had a force organization chart that capped at three for each of the specialists and mandated two Troops. Now we have free-form do-whatever-you-want list composition and somehow people are surprised at tournament-winning lists that just spam specialists.

I'd support hard percentages for Matched Play just to limit skew and force armies to conform to a general structure of what a competitive 40K force looks like. Then I'd also like GW to make a game where Troops are actually valuable.

They did it with Fantasy- blocks of rank-and-file were great for rank bonuses, flanking the enemy, and plugging gaps / covering flanks, making them a force multiplier for more directly combat-oriented units. But Troops in 40K either fight well enough to be specialists in their own right, they're cheap enough that you can spam them to occupy the board and do little else, or they're not worth taking.

Maybe that's a side effect of a game system so shallow that the only ways units can contribute are by either directly killing the enemy or standing on objectives and not being killed. But we've already beaten that horse enough.

Except you left out that every army had (well almost every army) 2-5 options to make another non-troop unit a troop. So while some marines had Tacs as troops others had Bikes, some had Terminators, etc.... Heck there were 6 Ork bike armies, and 3 Tanks as troops in IG.

Which in the end you could make lists that looks like an Outrider, Spearhead, or Vanguard detachment that we have now, the percent/limitations really didn't matter.

Troops work in factions where they add something nothing else does.

For me Tyranids are the best example.

Troops are the swarms, even more elite Warriors are pretty cheap.

Everything else are monsters, specialized units or ultra elite units, so you end up with many Tyranids using troops because they offer something you cannot find in other parts of the codex, but if you want to play nidzilla or thematic lists, you can.

Marines, on the other half... are just marines. Troops are just more boring marines. They do the same stuff than elite units but worse.

In Tau you have something similar to Tyranids. Nearly all your infantry are your troops. If you want bodies you need troops. Of course in practice the codex is always badly designed and people spam elite suits.

But theres also the "cool" factor. I'm the kind of guy that plays with 60 fire warriors and 50 kroots because I love me some troops. But most people likes the special stuff. Thats what draws them towards something. And as designers is very easy to catter to that crow. People that wants to use a ton of troops are the very, very small minority.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Except you left out that every army had (well almost every army) 2-5 options to make another non-troop unit a troop. So while some marines had Tacs as troops others had Bikes, some had Terminators, etc.... Heck there were 6 Ork bike armies, and 3 Tanks as troops in IG.

Which in the end you could make lists that looks like an Outrider, Spearhead, or Vanguard detachment that we have now, the percent/limitations really didn't matter.

The difference being that those usually came with their own caveats that limited force composition; or just the FOC itself.

If you were Guard you only got tanks as Troops if you were Armored Company, and that came with a whole laundry list of restrictions and special rules intended to benefit your opponent. If you played Deathwing and took Terminators as Troops, you had to have Belial in your army, and you weren't backing them up with 3 Vindicators and 3 Whirlwinds. If you took Speed Freeks you couldn't support them with a battery of Mek Gunz. It's when GW didn't impose these sorts of caveats- or did so in a half-assed way, like Iron Warriors getting a bonus HS slot at the cost of FA slots they wouldn't use- then there was potential for abuse.

More importantly, these were specific exceptions curated by GW. I couldn't decide Carnifexes would be Troops and build an army of nothing but them just because I wanted to. Even in the editions where Carnifex-spam was officially sanctioned, I was limited to six, of which three had to come in under a low points total to count as Elites. And then I still needed Troops. Now? I can take a Spearhead of nothing but Carnifexes. 19 of them to be specific.

The argument that it's currently no less restrictive than it used to be only works if you ignore all the restrictions that used to exist, so, not really.

There were no such restrictions in 2nd ed. "Troops" just meant "infantry" more or less. You could take all Terminators with no penalty other than that they were expensive and a well armed opponent could blast them off the table. I forget if Bikes were troops, but they might have been.

 Galas wrote:
Troops work in factions where they add something nothing else does.

For me Tyranids are the best example.

Troops are the swarms, even more elite Warriors are pretty cheap.

Everything else are monsters, specialized units or ultra elite units, so you end up with many Tyranids using troops because they offer something you cannot find in other parts of the codex, but if you want to play nidzilla or thematic lists, you can.

Marines, on the other half... are just marines. Troops are just more boring marines. They do the same stuff than elite units but worse.

In Tau you have something similar to Tyranids. Nearly all your infantry are your troops. If you want bodies you need troops. Of course in practice the codex is always badly designed and people spam elite suits.

But theres also the "cool" factor. I'm the kind of guy that plays with 60 fire warriors and 50 kroots because I love me some troops. But most people likes the special stuff. Thats what draws them towards something. And as designers is very easy to catter to that crow. People that wants to use a ton of troops are the very, very small minority.

Agree with all this. And I think this kind of goes back to the point of troops being "good" when they fill a niche. Termagaunt troops can be taken in hordes while their non-troops can't. Marines struggle with it because other units do tac and intercessors' jobs better. Assault intercessors might edge out most of the marine melee units right now, but if vanguard were better, you'd probably see people leaving assault intercessors on the shelves in favor of vanguards.

I think marine infiltrators are a decent example of what marine troops should probably look like. Their infiltration rule is pretty rare/unusual in the codex making them good at hopping on objectives turn 1 in a way that most units aren't (unless they're expensive). They have their special rule to block deepstrikers or build some healing into the squad to add to longevity. Roll the haywire mine guys into their datasheet as a wargear option, and they'd be able to sap objectives too. They don't have to out-kill other units in the book because they're offering support and scoring abilities that help the rest of the army.

 Lance845 wrote:
Tyranid Hormagaunts, Warriors, and Termagants are only bought with the intention of causing killing.

The only Nid troop I have ever bought in a list without the intention of killing is ripper swarms which I used to fill space in my back field to block out deep strikers.

Great example of good Troops units.

While Tac marines & Intercessors are too expensive just to sit there, aren't killy enough for the offensive role, and too expensive to screen. So you take 2-3 min squads (since it's one of the the cheapest units marines can buy), 1 to hold backfield objectives and 2 to push up early to grab the mid-field objectives so your opponent (hopefully) commits more than the 100 points of stuff to kill them so the marines can trade up.

I agree with @Galas & @Insectum7 - Troops have to fill a role (niche or not) so they become a viable choice rather than a tax. If they can't fill an offensive role (like hormagaunts), or a durability role (like DG), then they have to be inexpensive to fill a screening role (like IG).

Unfortunately there are few special things to do aside killing in 40K. The action mechanic would actually be where troops could shine, since they're usually not as much about killing stuff so it's okay when they trade their attacks for some victory points. So maybe you could go as far as saying objective based actions can only be taken by troops.
You could also toss some stratagems on them with a discount or for free, like Overwatch for example.
Or you could let troops provide cover for other units behind them.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Troops work in factions where they add something nothing else does.

For me Tyranids are the best example.

Troops are the swarms, even more elite Warriors are pretty cheap.

Everything else are monsters, specialized units or ultra elite units, so you end up with many Tyranids using troops because they offer something you cannot find in other parts of the codex, but if you want to play nidzilla or thematic lists, you can.

Marines, on the other half... are just marines. Troops are just more boring marines. They do the same stuff than elite units but worse.

In Tau you have something similar to Tyranids. Nearly all your infantry are your troops. If you want bodies you need troops. Of course in practice the codex is always badly designed and people spam elite suits.

But theres also the "cool" factor. I'm the kind of guy that plays with 60 fire warriors and 50 kroots because I love me some troops. But most people likes the special stuff. Thats what draws them towards something. And as designers is very easy to catter to that crow. People that wants to use a ton of troops are the very, very small minority.

Agree with all this. And I think this kind of goes back to the point of troops being "good" when they fill a niche. Termagaunt troops can be taken in hordes while their non-troops can't. Marines struggle with it because other units do tac and intercessors' jobs better. Assault intercessors might edge out most of the marine melee units right now, but if vanguard were better, you'd probably see people leaving assault intercessors on the shelves in favor of vanguards.

I think marine infiltrators are a decent example of what marine troops should probably look like. Their infiltration rule is pretty rare/unusual in the codex making them good at hopping on objectives turn 1 in a way that most units aren't (unless they're expensive). They have their special rule to block deepstrikers or build some healing into the squad to add to longevity. Roll the haywire mine guys into their datasheet as a wargear option, and they'd be able to sap objectives too. They don't have to out-kill other units in the book because they're offering support and scoring abilities that help the rest of the army.

This is more of an issue with the complete glut of units that SM have. At this point there are so many units and so little design space that they step on each others toes and so which ever one does the job better is the one people take. To fix it you need to pair down the number of units so that they can be focused into filling niches that other units do not and excel at them in ways other units in the dex don't.

You know, like squating the old marines so that the Primaris line just does it's specialized jobs.

 Lance845 wrote:
You don't make things desirable by forcing people to take undesirable things.

You need to make them desirable.

This is essentially correct. Just mandating a minimum amount of troops is just implementing a handicap tax in the current environment. The problem is that troops aren't worth taking; the symptom of that is people don't take troops. Treating the symptom doesn't treat the cause.

Look at a game like SW: Legion. Yes, it has a minimum 3 trooper units for the standard battle size that you have to take, but it's not at all unusual to see lists taking 4-6 instead, despite not having to, because the game system makes it worth doing so. But that's because Legion is a deep and narrow ruleset, not a wide and shallow one like 40k. Wide and shallow rulesets tend to struggle to make basic troopers worth taking because there is so little there there for a basic trooper. All the interesting bits of 40k are in the special rules, so why take the stuff that has the least special rules?

Until you fix the base game rules to make basic units more interesting and rewarding to play, anything you do to force people to take troops is often just forcing people to take lame stuff for the sake of forcing them to take lame stuff.

brainpsyk wrote:

I agree with @Galas & @Insectum7 - Troops have to fill a role (niche or not) so they become a viable choice rather than a tax. If they can't fill an offensive role (like hormagaunts), or a durability role (like DG), then they have to be inexpensive to fill a screening role (like IG).

Well, I think it's valid to have troops fill roles other than offense and durability. Sticking to the tyranid example, warriors can provide a large area of relatively cheap synapse, giving those hormagaunts immunity to morale and (per that new supplement) pass buffs along from HQs. Now warriors happen to have decent offensive and defensive builds too, but my point is that it's not all just offense and defense. See my previous post about infiltrators helping with scoring and zoning.

You could even maybe count troops with sniper rifles (rare as they are these days) in more of debuff category than a direct offense category. Their overall offense tends to not be very high, but they can stick that offense on enemy support characters to remove the foe's buffs.

Why not approach this from another angle.
Why not take a look at troops units (and not made troops ) that were picked regularly and over minimum requirement.

For me the Goldstandard was Renegade Militia platoons in that regard, in editions which were very LOW on troops.
It was the backbone of a intended even in its more elite representation, as a horde.

-It was facilitated by design to make it enticing to field more than msu, playing in the numbers aspect expected of the faction. This was achieved by bulk buying upgrades which were fixed in price regardless if you fielded 10-20 (30) modells per unit.

-Highly customizable. Even without upgrades provided by the Leader of the army the unit was highly customizable. It could fullfill needs of your lists basically always and at a good price.

-Interaction with the Leader. Basically it allowed to be molded by your choice of style of list to fit that list narratively and in battlefield role.

Percentages should be a thing again, period. Whether it's like a min percent in Troops or something like LoW being restricted to 25% of total or something, those are good for the game IMHO.

What they really should have done is adapted the Rites of War from 30k where if you had a way to, say, make X Troops, it came at a cost.

Wayniac wrote:
Percentages should be a thing again, period.

Agree. But not min percentages, max percentages.

Do you want a themed spead freaks army? Good, just don't spam fast attacks. Take as many as max percentages allow but add trukk boyz, trukk specialists, wagons and planes to the lot. Theme is intact, spam is avoided. Win win for everyone.

Min percentages however are wrong since armies have trash units in some specific slots, troops for example, and others have good ones or even very good ones. Limiting the best units is one thing (that's where the concept of max percentages kicks in), forcing to bring the worst ones is a different matter though, something I can't possibly contemplate as good.

Wayniac wrote:
Percentages should be a thing again, period. Whether it's like a min percent in Troops or something like LoW being restricted to 25% of total or something, those are good for the game IMHO.

Why tho? 99% of lord of wars suck and aren't optimal. Bringing them in most cases just means you're bringing a weaker list than if you stayed in-faction. Why is it that there is still hate towards them in the current edition lol?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
Percentages should be a thing again, period. Whether it's like a min percent in Troops or something like LoW being restricted to 25% of total or something, those are good for the game IMHO.

Why tho? 99% of lord of wars suck and aren't optimal. Bringing them in most cases just means you're bringing a weaker list than if you stayed in-faction. Why is it that there is still hate towards them in the current edition lol?

Because Big Model Bad, of course. Also New Models Bad. If it's newer/bigger than a Land Raider? Doesn't fit in the game.

Having finally played with my "new" super heavy...ie my old Morkanaut that is now a LoW this edition because...reasons....

Yeah, no. That things is a steaming pile of garbage. You could give it a 33% price cut and it would still be questionable.

While I agree with the spirit of this rule, I'm not a fan of adding further restrictions. As others have said, let's make troops more attractive to take, rather than a required %.

The simple way IMO, is to limit objective secured to troops only, but that horse has long since bolted.

You could also add a bunch of non-VP related actions that only troops can do.

IMO actions are such an underused concept right now...

I feel you could do a lot to make troops more desirable with a update to the terrain rules.

If occupying a terrain structure was valuable, and the best removal was other infantry.
You could use object secured for troops focused on defence, and other infantry without more focus on other things as well as removing troops. But unable to hold objectives why doing that task, even if more efficient for it.

I can't speak for their effectiveness in 9th, but back in 8th I ran numerous lists of infantry-based IG - which were based very heavily around troop choices.

I liked infantry squads because they could be cheap and plentiful, as well as flexible. 10 men with a special weapon for 50-60pts meant I could have 3-4 pseudo-platoons on the table, with a decent amount of points left over for HWSs and (another troop choice) Scions. Plus they had good HQ support in the form of Orders.

I've always loved fielding infantry-based armies, so part of this might be personal preference, but I can only think of one game when I really felt outgunned on the table. At all other times, my men would die by the handful but I'd still have plenty left to retaliate in kind. Scions, meanwhile, functioned as scalpel units to take out enemy vehicles or elite units that might otherwise prove difficult to deal with just with lasguns and BS4+ lascannons or autocannons.

It was the sort of army where, if troops were made 25% minimum, I'd just grin. 'Them's rookie numbers.'

 Galas wrote:
Troops work in factions where they add something nothing else does.

For me Tyranids are the best example.

Troops are the swarms, even more elite Warriors are pretty cheap.

Everything else are monsters, specialized units or ultra elite units, so you end up with many Tyranids using troops because they offer something you cannot find in other parts of the codex, but if you want to play nidzilla or thematic lists, you can.

Marines, on the other half... are just marines. Troops are just more boring marines. They do the same stuff than elite units but worse.

In Tau you have something similar to Tyranids. Nearly all your infantry are your troops. If you want bodies you need troops. Of course in practice the codex is always badly designed and people spam elite suits.

But theres also the "cool" factor. I'm the kind of guy that plays with 60 fire warriors and 50 kroots because I love me some troops. But most people likes the special stuff. Thats what draws them towards something. And as designers is very easy to catter to that crow. People that wants to use a ton of troops are the very, very small minority.

I think this is an excellent point. Troops that don't fulfil any sort of niche but are instead just worse versions of elite/FA/HS units is unlikely to encourage people to take them.

Apple fox wrote:
I feel you could do a lot to make troops more desirable with a update to the terrain rules.

If occupying a terrain structure was valuable, and the best removal was other infantry.
You could use object secured for troops focused on defence, and other infantry without more focus on other things as well as removing troops. But unable to hold objectives why doing that task, even if more efficient for it.

1000% agree.

If people want to see Troops on the table I am not sure what is stopping them? Be the change you want to see? Maybe we should worry about our own lists and not project our preferences on others? We play 40K with models that we collect and paint according to our personal preferences. "Troops" is a somewhat arbitrary distinction anyway.

I found the 2nd Ed % restriction on Characters, Battleline (the term changed by army) and Support to be workable without being too restrictive. I was not a fan of the 3rd Ed FOC.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Look at a game like SW: Legion. Yes, it has a minimum 3 trooper units for the standard battle size that you have to take, but it's not at all unusual to see lists taking 4-6 instead, despite not having to, because the game system makes it worth doing so. But that's because Legion is a deep and narrow ruleset, not a wide and shallow one like 40k. Wide and shallow rulesets tend to struggle to make basic troopers worth taking because there is so little there there for a basic trooper. All the interesting bits of 40k are in the special rules, so why take the stuff that has the least special rules?

Until you fix the base game rules to make basic units more interesting and rewarding to play, anything you do to force people to take troops is often just forcing people to take lame stuff for the sake of forcing them to take lame stuff.

This is pretty much where I'm at. I think there's a conversation to be had about using requirements and limits as a shaping mechanism to prevent game-breaking edge cases for competitive play, but the problem with Troops is that the rules don't give them anything to do.

Some of the suggestions I've seen- like how Infiltrators can, well, infiltrate, and then potentially provide secondary support abilities- is exactly the kind of stuff that would constitute an Elites choice in yesteryear. Troops are supposed to be the no-frills basic infantry, but what's basic infantry supposed to do in 9th?

Even for Tyranids, I don't think the case that they represent 'troops done right' is all that strong. You have Warriors who provide a genuine support ability via Synapse, but only started being taken when they were cheap enough (and sufficiently stratagem-supported) to be efficient at killing and taking damage. Rippers appear via Deep Strike and can hold objectives and screen enemy Deep Strike, and... that's it. Termagants either occupy space or are kitted out to kill the enemy, Hormagaunts engage the enemy ASAP to tie up or kill them (and aren't great at it, so don't see a ton of play), and Genestealers just move quickly and kill. Every Tyranids Troop choice is taken either to simply occupy space on the table, or to kill the enemy. Not a whole lot of dynamism there; they just happen to have some decently combat-effective Troops choices, and the other slots don't provide good space-occupying choices.

The most interesting potential is with Warriors having Synapse (bolstered by Octarius) or for Hormagaunts to leverage their increased pile-in/consolidate to tie up the enemy in melee, but those abilities aren't enough to carry the units without also favorable cost/damage ratios.

I love this conversations. Force organization is such a fundamental part of the game, but rarely gets the focused attention I think it deserves.

Here's my view and thoughts:

I think Troops should generally be a core default part of each army, but that more focused or skewed lists should be possible (albeit with some penalties). Some lists, where thematically appropriate, should have ways of having other certain units count as troops. I also think that the game is better when players are fielding more well-rounded lists.

For this basic paradigm to work, troops in general need to be valuable and worth taking to some extent on their own. But what's "worth it" is always relative to the other options. Without making troops specifically better, what if other specialists come with more of a cost at the strategic level.

Here's what I've been tinkering around with:

Instead of a force org chart or %'s be category or other gamey things, I'd rather have a more organic and adaptive system. For instance, take command points. What if you start with a certain amount of CP's (say a mere 6, or scaled to the size of the game, etc.) and for each unit of specialists that you take or HQ unit beyond your warlord you take costs you a CP. Maybe Lords of War costs 2 CP. Maybe taking more than 3 of a given specialist category further raises the cost to 2 CPs.

Then, have it so that each troop unit you take gives you another CP (or two if it's full size?) to spend either during play or during list construction. Troop units definitely need to have some system-wide rules like ObSec as a further incentive too.

Armies with special fluffy variations could gain some added flexibility - i.e. White Scars can take Bikers without paying the usual CP cost for them. Then again, you don't get more CP's for taking them, as they don't officially count as troops.

However many command points you have left after list building is your starting pool of CP's to use in the game. Want to make a heavy skew list? Go for it, but you might start the game with zero CP's and some reduced capability in that regard.

I think that system would work if you balanced it per army. I hate when things are balanced via core rules because orks work fundamentally differently from say necrons.

 Mezmorki wrote:
I love this conversations. Force organization is such a fundamental part of the game, but rarely gets the focused attention I think it deserves.

Here's my view and thoughts:

I think Troops should generally be a core default part of each army, but that more focused or skewed lists should be possible (albeit with some penalties). Some lists, where thematically appropriate, should have ways of having other certain units count as troops. I also think that the game is better when players are fielding more well-rounded lists.

For this basic paradigm to work, troops in general need to be valuable and worth taking to some extent on their own. But what's "worth it" is always relative to the other options. Without making troops specifically better, what if other specialists come with more of a cost at the strategic level.

Here's what I've been tinkering around with:

Instead of a force org chart or %'s be category or other gamey things, I'd rather have a more organic and adaptive system. For instance, take command points. What if you start with a certain amount of CP's (say a mere 6, or scaled to the size of the game, etc.) and for each unit of specialists that you take or HQ unit beyond your warlord you take costs you a CP. Maybe Lords of War costs 2 CP. Maybe taking more than 3 of a given specialist category further raises the cost to 2 CPs.

Then, have it so that each troop unit you take gives you another CP (or two if it's full size?) to spend either during play or during list construction. Troop units definitely need to have some system-wide rules like ObSec as a further incentive too.

Armies with special fluffy variations could gain some added flexibility - i.e. White Scars can take Bikers without paying the usual CP cost for them. Then again, you don't get more CP's for taking them, as they don't officially count as troops.

However many command points you have left after list building is your starting pool of CP's to use in the game. Want to make a heavy skew list? Go for it, but you might start the game with zero CP's and some reduced capability in that regard.

So % based pts requirements = gamey.
But fiddling with Command Points = not gamey.
??
BTW, you're last paragraph? That's exactly how the current system works.

If you want troops to be special they need some unique rules to make them so on the table. Obsec was an example - but this has tended to be degraded so in 9th its rarely seen as worth it.

In practice its just a function of efficiency. We saw plenty of 8th edition codexes where elite units were overcosted compared to troops - so people were happy to bring hundreds of points of troops and no elites. In 9th that's tended to go the other way, so in many armies troops are just not taken.

You can just mandate every faction has to take 3 units from their troops pool - but its kind of lame. And saying "oh no we'll let this or that army off cos fluff" is still lame.

Like a lot of things - I think it comes down to rules that enable a more highlander style list. I.E. these 3 units of troops are *good*, you should *want to take them* - but they are not somehow good by just being further up the power curve than everything else in the book, to the point where you should throw 800+ points into them. Its the same spirit of trying to have characters/monsters/tanks which feel powerful on the tabletop - i.e. by being up the curve - but not so much you just instantly take 3. But then I fear they'd start doing something awful with stratagems/CP and I don't want that either.

 catbarf wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Except you left out that every army had (well almost every army) 2-5 options to make another non-troop unit a troop. So while some marines had Tacs as troops others had Bikes, some had Terminators, etc.... Heck there were 6 Ork bike armies, and 3 Tanks as troops in IG.

Which in the end you could make lists that looks like an Outrider, Spearhead, or Vanguard detachment that we have now, the percent/limitations really didn't matter.

The difference being that those usually came with their own caveats that limited force composition; or just the FOC itself.

If you were Guard you only got tanks as Troops if you were Armored Company, and that came with a whole laundry list of restrictions and special rules intended to benefit your opponent. If you played Deathwing and took Terminators as Troops, you had to have Belial in your army, and you weren't backing them up with 3 Vindicators and 3 Whirlwinds. If you took Speed Freeks you couldn't support them with a battery of Mek Gunz. It's when GW didn't impose these sorts of caveats- or did so in a half-assed way, like Iron Warriors getting a bonus HS slot at the cost of FA slots they wouldn't use- then there was potential for abuse.

More importantly, these were specific exceptions curated by GW. I couldn't decide Carnifexes would be Troops and build an army of nothing but them just because I wanted to. Even in the editions where Carnifex-spam was officially sanctioned, I was limited to six, of which three had to come in under a low points total to count as Elites. And then I still needed Troops. Now? I can take a Spearhead of nothing but Carnifexes. 19 of them to be specific.

The argument that it's currently no less restrictive than it used to be only works if you ignore all the restrictions that used to exist, so, not really.

But it wasn't "ONLY'' it was "This unit becomes Troop if X is your HQ" You could still take IG troops with Tank troops, just no one did bc there was no reason too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
If you want troops to be special they need some unique rules to make them so on the table. Obsec was an example - but this has tended to be degraded so in 9th its rarely seen as worth it.

In practice its just a function of efficiency. We saw plenty of 8th edition codexes where elite units were overcosted compared to troops - so people were happy to bring hundreds of points of troops and no elites. In 9th that's tended to go the other way, so in many armies troops are just not taken.

You can just mandate every faction has to take 3 units from their troops pool - but its kind of lame. And saying "oh no we'll let this or that army off cos fluff" is still lame.

Like a lot of things - I think it comes down to rules that enable a more highlander style list. I.E. these 3 units of troops are *good*, you should *want to take them* - but they are not somehow good by just being further up the power curve than everything else in the book, to the point where you should throw 800+ points into them. Its the same spirit of trying to have characters/monsters/tanks which feel powerful on the tabletop - i.e. by being up the curve - but not so much you just instantly take 3. But then I fear they'd start doing something awful with stratagems/CP and I don't want that either.

This, DE takes troops, more than most players, Admech was up until last week taking 120 troops lol. Its not that people want special, they want units that work best.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
But it wasn't "ONLY'' it was "This unit becomes Troop if X is your HQ" You could still take IG troops with Tank troops, just no one did bc there was no reason too.

That's not true, and it's a perfect example of how those curated rules weren't functionally 'anything goes'. Under the Armored Company list, none of your vehicles could move within 12" of enemy infantry unless you had friendly infantry within 6" to provide close support. That created an organic incentive to take Armored Fist squads, even if they weren't as optimal combatants as just taking more tanks. It was a deliberate balancing mechanism built into the Armored Company list to offset its skew nature.

Even with the characters that did outright make an alternative unit Troops with no other changes, you a) had to take that specific HQ, and b) still were limited to three slots of each category. Just because you could take Terminators as Troops in a Deathwing army didn't mean you could also back them up with six tanks- or take Terminators as Troops in an Ultramarines list.

These are relevant restrictions that constrained army-building even in the presence of FOC-altering mechanics. Nowadays you just take 12 Leman Russes in a single Spearhead if you want and pick whichever subfaction to maximize their combat ability.

 catbarf wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
But it wasn't "ONLY'' it was "This unit becomes Troop if X is your HQ" You could still take IG troops with Tank troops, just no one did bc there was no reason too.

That's not true, and it's a perfect example of how those curated rules weren't functionally 'anything goes'. Under the Armored Company list, none of your vehicles could move within 12" of enemy infantry unless you had friendly infantry within 6" to provide close support. That created an organic incentive to take Armored Fist squads, even if they weren't as optimal combatants as just taking more tanks. It was a deliberate balancing mechanism built into the Armored Company list to offset its skew nature.

Even with the characters that did outright make an alternative unit Troops with no other changes, you a) had to take that specific HQ, and b) still were limited to three slots of each category. Just because you could take Terminators as Troops in a Deathwing army didn't mean you could also back them up with six tanks- or take Terminators as Troops in an Ultramarines list.

These are relevant restrictions that constrained army-building even in the presence of FOC-altering mechanics. Nowadays you just take 12 Leman Russes in a single Spearhead if you want and pick whichever subfaction to maximize their combat ability.

Yes you needed an HQ as I literally said and yes you could replace all troops if you wanted too and or had other troops too.

For example one edition I had 6 troops for DE all were Hellions, why? Bc it let me and I could, it was cool looking army, i loved it.

 Mezmorki wrote:

Here's what I've been tinkering around with:

Instead of a force org chart or %'s be category or other gamey things, I'd rather have a more organic and adaptive system. For instance, take command points. What if you start with a certain amount of CP's (say a mere 6, or scaled to the size of the game, etc.) and for each unit of specialists that you take or HQ unit beyond your warlord you take costs you a CP. Maybe Lords of War costs 2 CP. Maybe taking more than 3 of a given specialist category further raises the cost to 2 CPs.

That's essentially how things work now via detachment costs. If you want to avoid taking troops or if you want to take more than 3 Fast Attacks, you have to spend CP on detachments. Also, this approach still has a lot of the same problems as the current system:

A.) Fluffy lists that happen to not use troops are penalized for being thematic. (A Saim-Hann player with 9 fast attack units might start the game with fewer CP than a harlequin player who is happy to field troupes.)
B.) Tying it to number of units of a given battlefield role doesn't factor in what those units actually are or how many points they cost. So armies with cheap units will run out of slots faster than more expensive armies.
C.) What is and isn't a troop in 40k is really arbitrary, so creating penalties for not fielding troops feels like it's just creating problems for themed armies or armies that happen to have weaker troops than others. Ex: Why is it okay for GK to take a bunch of terminators without paying a CP penalty, but it's not okay for Salamanders to do the same?

Then, have it so that each troop unit you take gives you another CP (or two if it's full size?) to spend either during play or during list construction.

Strongly favors armies with cheap and/or cost-effective troops. This basically puts armies with expensive or less-good troops at a disadvantage. Consider how many troop units guard players could spam for X points compared to, say, necrons. And harlequins are probably a lot happier about fielding some troops than my craftworlders are.

Troop units definitely need to have some system-wide rules like ObSec as a further incentive too.

See, this sounds like we're just acknowledging that troops are often undesirable. Rather than trying to fix that with a one-size-fits-all approach like ObSec, why not just tweak the rules of the undesirable troops to make them desirable again? Maybe that takes the form of certain troops granting CP or having ObSec, but it shouldn't have to. You're basically describing making troops more "worth it." Why limit ourselves to bonus CP and ObSec to do that?

Armies with special fluffy variations could gain some added flexibility - i.e. White Scars can take Bikers without paying the usual CP cost for them. Then again, you don't get more CP's for taking them, as they don't officially count as troops.

Eh. See, if it's reasonable for White Scars to take bikers as troops, then why not just make them troops or revise the army building rules to not limit access to bikers in the first place? Why are biker troops fine when they're painted white, but only when they're painted white?

However many command points you have left after list building is your starting pool of CP's to use in the game. Want to make a heavy skew list? Go for it, but you might start the game with zero CP's and some reduced capability in that regard.

See, except you haven't necessarily limited skew so much as you've just made certain types of skew harder to pull off for certain factions. If Iyanden can take wraithguard/blades as troops (similar to White Scars having bike troops), I can easily have an entire army of Toughness 6 or higher. My Ultramarines opponent running 2 or 3 troop units might have a couple more CP than me, but only a couple, and I'm skewing pretty hard while he's running a non-skew list.

So two big things here:
1.) Some people seem to think troops should be straight up less cost-effective/less useful for their points than non-troops. I find this to be a less than ideal approach to unit design. If your tactical marines are just worse devastators, then they should be redesigned to be desirable in their own way.
2.) Skew lists and optimized lists aren't necessarily the same thing. If I spam as many gretchin as possible, that's a skew list, but I'm not necessarily going to win a lot of games with it. If your goal in making troops mandatory or semi-mandatory is to restrict the overall power of your opponent's list, then your objective isn't to encourage troops; it's to limit the number of "good" units your opponent takes. In which case, you ought to be looking for a system that identifies "good" units by their merits rather than their semi-arbitrary Battlefield Roles.

I prefer discrete units to percentage based systems.

3 Heavy Support means I can bring 3 Heavy Support choices, or not use them at all, or only use some of them. 25% of a 2000 point list means if I bring 1 HS choice that's 501 points my army is illegal.

No thanks.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I prefer discrete units to percentage based systems.

3 Heavy Support means I can bring 3 Heavy Support choices, or not use them at all, or only use some of them. 25% of a 2000 point list means if I bring 1 HS choice that's 501 points my army is illegal.

No thanks.

Well, it's way more fair though. Some armies have HS that cost 45 points. Others may have effective HS for 150+ points. In the first case the player would be forced to bring undesired units because the desired ones are too cheap, that's why current detachment system is good. Same for FA. An optimized stormboyz squad is a min squad of 5 dudes that costs 55 points, an optimized thunderwolf cavalry squad is also a 5 man one but costs 270ish points. Besides, one 501 points HS choice? That's a Lord of War.

Elite armies can ignore the FOC limitations, they won't get 3+ of each slot anyway. For armies like orks having only 3 HS or FA available is extremely limiting. Unless several of the units (pretty much all the infantry) currently listed under Elites, HS, FA become troops, like in 3rd edition codex and under specific circumstances (aka bringing specific HQs) also in 4th one.

The idea could work only without a single flat FOC for everyone, each army gets its own one instead. Cheaper armies would dispose of more slots of course.

I'm wondering what the actual problem is that people are trying to solve here?

This thread is full of solutions without a problem to solve.

 Jidmah wrote:
I'm wondering what the actual problem is that people are trying to solve here?

This thread is full of solutions without a problem to solve.

The problem is how can we design troops to give them a role sufficiently invaluable as to motivate players to ensure that they represent a proper bulk of the army. Not with %pts, not with force org charts, but with game design. Such that when it comes to list design you would think 'Well, of course I'll start with 500-700pts of troops', as quick as a LoL player would say 'Well, of course we need a Jungler'. Not because the troops just do what units in other slots do, but better, but because they are Troops. If the shift to Objectives + Ob Sec (rather than Killing + Detachments) didn't do it, then what would it take?

The answer will likely be a combination of two questions:
1) What do we need to give troops to motivate the role to constitute the bulk of any army?
2) How do we need to change the game designn to motivate this role?

And address this issue such that the answer is not just to look to 1), and say 'You have to take Xpts or fill X force org slots. That's lazy, and boring.

Well, troops being the bulk of an any army seems illogical when there are factions with 150+ datasheets with just a couple of those being troops. Unless merging several infantry units into the troop section I don't see why this should be appealing. Why do people want troop to be more common? Just by principle? To avoid/limit skew?

By game design I though about letting troops score more points through objectives, but then armies with better troops could gain too much advantages. And ironically the current top tier armies are those which rely the most on troops. Jidmah made an interesting proposition: let troops do actions, with some significant impact to the game, that only they can do. They won't fire, they won't fight as long as they perform the action, as usual. Very elite oriented and expensive ones could make an exception though, it'd be too punishing for armies like custodes or harlequins, which can't field cheap expendable troops, otherwise and fluffwise it would be also be justified.

 TonyH122 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
I'm wondering what the actual problem is that people are trying to solve here?

This thread is full of solutions without a problem to solve.

The problem is how can we design troops to give them a role sufficiently invaluable as to motivate players to ensure that they represent a proper bulk of the army. Not with %pts, not with force org charts, but with game design. Such that when it comes to list design you would think 'Well, of course I'll start with 500-700pts of troops', as quick as a LoL player would say 'Well, of course we need a Jungler'. Not because the troops just do what units in other slots do, but better, but because they are Troops. If the shift to Objectives + Ob Sec (rather than Killing + Detachments) didn't do it, then what would it take?

The answer will likely be a combination of two questions:
1) What do we need to give troops to motivate the role to constitute the bulk of any army?
2) How do we need to change the game designn to motivate this role?

And address this issue such that the answer is not just to look to 1), and say 'You have to take Xpts or fill X force org slots. That's lazy, and boring.

Hah, I 100% agree with this post, especially the "we need a jungler" part really nails it. In essence troops need to be able to do something special so that you feel like you are missing out when you don't bring troops.

Yet, this entire thread seems to be revolving around forcing people into taking stuff that they normally wouldn't want to take.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackie wrote:
By game design I though about letting troops score more points through objectives, but then armies with better troops could gain too much advantages. And ironically the current top tier armies are those which rely the most on troops. Jidmah made an interesting proposition: let troops do actions, which some significant impact to the game, that only they can do. They won't fire, they won't fight as long as they perform the action, as usual. Very elite oriented and expensive ones could make an exception though, it'd be too punishing for armies like custodes or harlequins, which can't field cheap expendable troops, otherwise and fluffwise it would be also be justified.

Some brainstorming on this: I like the idea of troops being a backbone/logistical unit. Actions to highlight that could be:
- Fortify position: Improve the protection of a piece of terrain significantly
- Spotter: VEHICLE or MONSTER units can shoot units that are seen by the troops unit, even if they can't see them.
- Request new orders: Gain CP, needs to be near a character, double if near warlord.
- Call backup/summon: Reserves can be deployed close to this unit without the usual limitations of strategic reserves.
- Suppressing fire: Place a marker within shooting range of the unit. Whenever an enemy unit come to close to that marker, you can open fire (possibly at reduced efficiency)
- Smoke launchers: For shooting, this unit counts as obscuring obstacle as long as it is performing this action.

Note that these are intentionally vague to not spark discussions about balancing. The one important thing is that these should not increase damage, but provide utility or defense only. Otherwise the action will just be in direct competition with other damage-dealing units and crank up the lethality issue even more.

 TonyH122 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
I'm wondering what the actual problem is that people are trying to solve here?

This thread is full of solutions without a problem to solve.

The problem is how can we design troops to give them a role sufficiently invaluable as to motivate players to ensure that they represent a proper bulk of the army. Not with %pts, not with force org charts, but with game design. Such that when it comes to list design you would think 'Well, of course I'll start with 500-700pts of troops', as quick as a LoL player would say 'Well, of course we need a Jungler'. Not because the troops just do what units in other slots do, but better, but because they are Troops. If the shift to Objectives + Ob Sec (rather than Killing + Detachments) didn't do it, then what would it take?

The answer will likely be a combination of two questions:
1) What do we need to give troops to motivate the role to constitute the bulk of any army?
2) How do we need to change the game designn to motivate this role?

And address this issue such that the answer is not just to look to 1), and say 'You have to take Xpts or fill X force org slots. That's lazy, and boring.

Look, I don't mind if my troops become more useful. Even if that'd likely make them more expensive. But I assure you that there's only 3 instances where I would ever start my list building with "Well of course I'll start with (X) troops....".

1) I'm required to for some reason. Typically rules related.
Ex: The Patrol lv in our Crusade games. The group is pretty well in favor of always starting with the Patrol Detachment. Wich means except for Knights, that no matter what I'm playing I have to start by including 1 Troop.

2) The troops fit the theme of what I'm doing. What I'm aiming to build. The vision in MY head of what I want MY army to look like. What you think an army should look like? Is not important to me. If the troops fit? If not? I'm happy to spend the CP on an alternate detachment.
Ex.1; My DA 3rd Co. It's core has always been 3, sometimes 4, Tac squads. Always will be. No matter how good/bad/etc they are. Because that's what I envision being the essential part of a Marine battle company.
Ex.2; My 100% Destroyer cult Necrons. 1st, there are no troops with the Destroyer KW/ability. If there were I'd use them - unless the models were pure gak sculpt wise. There aren't & I'm not breaking my theme no matter how awesome you'd make my warriors/Immortals.

3) The actual models. If I just simply really like the models that's reason enough.
Ex; Guard infantry. Particularly the Praetorians, the Steel Legion, & Krieg.

While it sound nice, the truth is that if you allow troops to perform special actions, you give again an advantage to those that can deploy the smallest troop units.

Troops to be played need to be good. To be good without stepping on the toes of the elite units, they need to work with high synergies with the army theme.

SM troops having all doctrines always active
Ork Boyz getting more buffs from WAAAGH
Tau troops gaining more bonuses from Montka and Kayuon
Plague Marines being the prime vectors for spreading the contagion
Sister troops should have better chances to create miracle dices.

Those are the things that are needed.

Look at the troops that work:

Necron troops work because they are the models that work best with reanimation.
Tyranids troops work because they interact well with synapse.
Rubrics work because they interact well with rituals.
Skiitari work because they interact well with the techpriests.
DE troops work very well within the transport theme of the army.

 Jidmah wrote:
I'm wondering what the actual problem is that people are trying to solve here?

This thread is full of solutions without a problem to solve.

Did you read the title? Imagine troop requirements.

A lot of us lived through troop requirements and knows it doesn't fix balance issues, so its more of a talk about what it would change in the game... aka imagine.

 Blackie wrote:
Well, troops being the bulk of an any army seems illogical when there are factions with 150+ datasheets with just a couple of those being troops. Unless merging several infantry units into the troop section I don't see why this should be appealing. Why do people want troop to be more common? Just by principle? To avoid/limit skew?

Troops are supposed to be the bulk of the army. Unfortunately, GW game design is bad enough that troops are consistently a tax or a punishment (with some few exceptions).
Since, according to GW, the game is supposed to evoke the fluff and the setting, this is pretty much a major failure of design on their part.

Weirdly WFB was always a little better about this, and since the % requirements and restrictions were a comfortable part of WFB (for the most part), it makes some sense to look at it for 40k. But it has never worked out.

But Fantasy did not had troops. Units were separated literally by how common they were in the army, not by the "role" they had.

But Blackie has a good point: When you have an army that has 1 troop option and 30 non troop options, forcing the players to use that one option that is much more boring than all the other cool stuff , from a design standpoint, is just bad design.

 Jidmah wrote:
I'm wondering what the actual problem is that people are trying to solve here?

This thread is full of solutions without a problem to solve.

One issue is that there's a specific list constantly being referenced as an example without the context of which version of that list it is.

There's been at least 2 iterations of the "Armoured Battlegroup" list that I can think of from FW. Both of those fit more along with what Catbarf is describing, and those weren't really encountered too much outside of friendly play.

There was also a Chapter Approved version in (I think?) 2003. It was weird.

RE: "Troops are the bulk of the army" points people seem to be making...

Part of my initial involvement in this thread was to illustrate that this is a somewhat misguided point (and clearly I failed, though what else is new).

At the scale 40k is played (essentially Company scale at 2000 points, Platoon scale at 500 points) there is no such thing as "the bulk of the army". You're playing a very tiny piece of a larger army, rather than playing an entire Combined Arms Brigade or the like (which is at least two echelons higher). At this scale, it doesn't really make sense to say that "you should take unit X because unit X is the bulk of your chosen faction." Take, for example, a Company Scale World War II game (e.g. Flames of War) or a Platoon Scale one (e.g. Chain of Command). In these games, companies are often divided into types and these types define what the bulk of the force was. This is what I was getting at with my earlier attempt to do the same thing for 40k. There are "Tank Companies" with the bulk of the force being the common tanks available to the faction. There are "Heavy Tank Companies" with rare and powerful machines, but fewer of them. There are "Infantry Companies", "Assault Engineer Companies"... At the Platoon Scale, there are partizan 'platoons', cavalry platoons, tank platoons, self-propelled artillery platoons, anti-aircraft platoons...

the "bulk" of a German air defense platoon might be a gun section of 88mm cannons, while the "bulk" of a British tank company might be Shermans or Cromwell medium tanks. The "bulk" of an American armored rifle unit would be halftracks with infantry, whilst the bulk of a Soviet assault engineer list would be sappers with body armor and very short-ranged guns.

Similarly, at the platoon/company scale 40k (kinda) fits at, the "type" of army the player wishes to play should inform the "bulk" of what their faction is.

The "bulk" of Iyanden armies should be wraith units. The "bulk" of Imperial Guard armored companies are leman russ squadrons. The "bulk" of a Necron Tombworld Defense Force are cryptek units. The "bulk" of a Tyranid Synapse Nexus might be Zoanthropes.

That's why I think troop requirements are bad - but also why I think troops themselves should be good.

An Infantry Company should be as good as an Armored Company. Ulthwe Black Guardians should compete evenly with Iyanden wraithspam. A Tyranid Hive Nexus should be on par with an onrushing wave of Termagants and their Tervigon mommies. A Farsight Strike Force should be as viable as Kroot Mercenaries, etc.

Boyz in 8th were pretty alright, mainly because they had buffs designed from all the way back in 4th that fit them. More boyz gets you a better psyker, which makes your boyz better. More boyz makes your painboy able to pay back his points, and boyz are the optimal unit to screen with a kff.
This all changed with the 9th dex, which is a bit sad.

Do Ulthwe's Black Guardians even have rules these days?

 Kanluwen wrote:
Do Ulthwe's Black Guardians even have rules these days?

They have a stratagem (y'know, like everything else).

But the point is that armies with variable "troops" should be balanced, even if its balanced between gigantic bipedal murderbots as the "bulk" of the force (Imperial Knights) and like, random unarmored angry folks (R&H) as the "bulk" of the force.

Was a genuine question. I've not read the Aeldari book in a loooong time.

I'd argue that there's a huge difference in balancing out these forces of, say, four gigantic murderbots that can't ever really claim terrain bonuses and a carpet of angry tradesmen with guns harping on about the voices.


I don't know what the right answer is overall. I really don't. What I do know is that as long as people want to continue to pretend that listbuilding shouldn't be a cooperative venture or a reasonable discussion to have before friendly games?

There will always be a problem.

 Galas wrote:
But Fantasy did not had troops. Units were separated literally by how common they were in the army, not by the "role" they had.

Part of the 'troops slot' is how common they are. You're making a distinction where there isn't one. Of course, making elites 6 instead of 3 and just letting people go with FA and HS force orgs undermines this completely, but that's the GW design 'genius' at work.

But Blackie has a good point: When you have an army that has 1 troop option and 30 non troop options, forcing the players to use that one option that is much more boring than all the other cool stuff , from a design standpoint, is just bad design.

The thing is, they don't have to boring. The bad design part comes from marketing, where they don't want limits on the non-troops stuff for sales reasons.
And then they go and punish players for wanting to use cheap stuff, like cultists or grots, or exile scouts to elites, because... they don't actually want to see the numerous stuff in numbers.
Its just a mess. But in the Great Plan, marketing>rules>fluff.

Theres a few ways to incentivize troops:

1. Any troops unit that has more than 10 models can preform an action that takes the whole turn in one phase.

2. If, at the end of the game, you still possess enough troops units to hold more than half of the objectives, you score an additional 5 points on primary (not exceeding the cap of 45).

3. Adding in a new secondary that gives points anytime a troops unit kills an elite/FA/Heavy support unit.

I know this is going to sound crazy, but bear with me for a second here, guys.

What if you gave troops a special ability - let's call it Target Occupied - that would mean that when you have a troops unit within range of an objective, it automatically controls it unless the opponent also has a troops unit within range, no matter how many models are involved.

Then all you'd have to do is make sure you resisted the temptation to start creating ways to put this ability on other, non-troops units and...

....oh. Oh no.

How about we make troops better?

Look at tactical marines, BT use to be able to take 15 point crusaders and they were hardly game breaking. They were put up to 18 now with the new codex, and that killed them. Tactical marines as a whole could probably go down to 16 points.

Look are ork boys. Sure they got T5 and AP-1 choppas but they lost a ton of other buffs. They could probably go down to 8 points per model, and say something like Kommandos went up to 14 points we'd see more boys.

Even battle sisters aren't great for their cost. If they were 10 points maybe they'd see more use.

Jarms48 wrote:
... and say something like Kommandos went up to 14 points we'd see more boys.

Careful now. You started your post by saying that we should make Troops better, but one of your suggestions is to artificially inflate the cost of another unit.

Don't punish other units because Troops are bad.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Jarms48 wrote:
... and say something like Kommandos went up to 14 points we'd see more boys.

Careful now. You started your post by saying that we should make Troops better, but one of your suggestions is to artificially inflate the cost of another unit.

Don't punish other units because Troops are bad.

If you think a Kommando is balanced at 10 points you're past saving. Even if you're not abusing their forward deploy they're still far superior to boys, even with an increased 2 point difference. I'd take 45 of them before even taking a single boy.

Voss wrote:


Weirdly WFB was always a little better about this, and since the % requirements and restrictions were a comfortable part of WFB (for the most part), it makes some sense to look at it for 40k. But it has never worked out.

In fantasy 30-50% of the codex units' were troops though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jarms48 wrote:


Look are ork boys. Sure they got T5 and AP-1 choppas but they lost a ton of other buffs. They could probably go down to 8 points per model, and say something like Kommandos went up to 14 points we'd see more boys.

But at that point you'd make Kommandos useless.

Balancing boyz is actually pretty hard since the ork codex have tons of boyz alike units: we have two versions of the standard dudes (boyz with shoota or slugga/choppa), the armored ones that can infiltrate (kommandos), the flying faster boyz (stormboyz), short ranged armed boyz (burnaboyz), mid ranged armed boyz (tankbustas) and long ranged armed boyz (lootas). It's certainly not easy to make all of them good and useful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Boyz in 8th were pretty alright, mainly because they had buffs designed from all the way back in 4th that fit them. More boyz gets you a better psyker, which makes your boyz better. More boyz makes your painboy able to pay back his points, and boyz are the optimal unit to screen with a kff.
This all changed with the 9th dex, which is a bit sad.

Boyz in 8th were terrible outside a single archetype, the green tide, though. And even then, only a single klan, Goffs, made them good by adding a few additional bonuses and synergies to the unit.

Boyz in 8th weren't really played more than now outside the Goffs greentide. Except in the index era of course, when everything except boyz, gretchins and a handful of characters were priced insanely high.

Voss wrote:

 Galas wrote:
But Fantasy did not had troops. Units were separated literally by how common they were in the army, not by the "role" they had.

Part of the 'troops slot' is how common they are. You're making a distinction where there isn't one. Of course, making elites 6 instead of 3 and just letting people go with FA and HS force orgs undermines this completely, but that's the GW design 'genius' at work.

It's also weird that only battalions get those extra elite slots, and no other detachments. IMO this is just a symptom of 40k lacking the sub-commander role to hold all those extra characters 40k suddenly got when 8th curbed the idea of characters being members of units.

You could always say and VPs gained by a TROOP unit add an additional 1-3VP (unsure of a good amount here, not quite my specialty). That would totally encourage TROOP units in armies.

Jarms48 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Jarms48 wrote:
... and say something like Kommandos went up to 14 points we'd see more boys.

Careful now. You started your post by saying that we should make Troops better, but one of your suggestions is to artificially inflate the cost of another unit.

Don't punish other units because Troops are bad.

If you think a Kommando is balanced at 10 points you're past saving. Even if you're not abusing their forward deploy they're still far superior to boys, even with an increased 2 point difference. I'd take 45 of them before even taking a single boy.

I think a 10pt Kommando is competitive, but its not broken. Case and point, the competitive lists winning/placing at GT's/Majors aren't taking them.

Lets start from the beginning. What is a Kommando? A Kommando is a Boy. A Boy is heavily over priced at 9ppm to the point where almost nobody is taking them in competitive games, and the handful that are, are taking them as MSU Troops tax and that is it. So we start from the premise that a 9ppm boy is useless and over priced. So what does the Kommando have that the boy doesnt?

+2 to armor in cover and +1 to wound while in cover and finally they can infiltrate. So they get 2 situational buffs and 1 Deployment buff. They have access to a 5pt PK (cheapest in the codex) and a bomb squig and a distraction grot. I think every other upgrade is crap. The Breacha ram is possible as an upgrade, but even that I tend to ignore since I don't need it.

So why do I take Kommandos instead of Boyz? Because they start the game basically in charge range, which means I don't have to spend 2 full turns walking across a board with 6+ armor. And 2, their situational buffs are great if you play into them. I start every game in cover no matter how out of position that puts me because getting a 3+ armor save or a 4+ with -1 to hit is just too great to ignore. My opponent can either A: spend a turn shooting at 10ppm kommandos or B: GTFO of the way and move to where I can't assault turn 1. So far, not a single person has chosen option B and have instead opted to waste a turn shooting at ridiculously durable 10ppm Boyz. To kill a Kommando in Cover takes 13.5 Bolter shots, to kill a Marine in cover takes 36 bolter shots. So even in cover they are still less durable than a Marine. 90pts of Marines is 5 Marines, 90pts of Kommandos is 9 Kommandos. To kill 5 Marines takes 180 bolter shots, to kill 9 Kommandos in cover takes 121.5 So they are still less durable point for point than those Marines. Biggest difference is, bringing in D2 weapons doesn't impact the Kommandos in anyway, but is a massive hit to those Marines.

So yeah, don't nerf a good unit in the ork codex just because you don't like them, and then try to hide it by saying "it would make boyz better" no it wouldn't it would make Kommandos worse. If i nerfed Dreadz into the dirt it wouldn't make killakanz better.

 Blndmage wrote:
You could always say and VPs gained by a TROOP unit add an additional 1-3VP (unsure of a good amount here, not quite my specialty). That would totally encourage TROOP units in armies.

Just introduce a secondary which targets non-troops and you are served.

One problem with troops is just that like, elites are just better troops now. They can get everything troops can but better, for often a more economical price to output ratio.
Might be because gw charges so much for them. 5 stormboyz is just as much as 11 boyz for honestly no reason.

It used to be that you could field six units of boyz and three units of stormboyz in an average list.

 Blackie wrote:

Voss wrote:


Weirdly WFB was always a little better about this, and since the % requirements and restrictions were a comfortable part of WFB (for the most part), it makes some sense to look at it for 40k. But it has never worked out.

In fantasy 30-50% of the codex units' were troops though.

Eh. In the sense that 'guy with spear' is a different unit from 'guy with sword and shield' or 'guy with bow', yeah, I guess. I don't think that's incredibly convincing, though.

But in third edition, percentages caps were for monsters and allies, and the common units were required to have 1+ or 2+ units and the elite stuff was capped at 0-1 or 0-2, and army lists weren't amazingly different.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
One problem with troops is just that like, elites are just better troops now. They can get everything troops can but better, for often a more economical price to output ratio.

I guess that might depend upon what faction you're looking at? Because my Necron's Elite options aren't really anything like my Warrior/Immortal troop options.

ccs wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
One problem with troops is just that like, elites are just better troops now. They can get everything troops can but better, for often a more economical price to output ratio.

I guess that might depend upon what faction you're looking at? Because my Necron's Elite options aren't really anything like my Warrior/Immortal troop options.

Necrons are also just sort of a funky army. Look at orks, SM, guard, and some more standard factions though. Their elites just bring to the table what the grunts can but more efficiently.

Voss wrote:
Eh. In the sense that 'guy with spear' is a different unit from 'guy with sword and shield' or 'guy with bow', yeah, I guess. I don't think that's incredibly convincing, though.

But in third edition, percentages caps were for monsters and allies, and the common units were required to have 1+ or 2+ units and the elite stuff was capped at 0-1 or 0-2, and army lists weren't amazingly different.

I think they were more getting at the fact that it was divided into 'Core', 'Special', and 'Rare'. With just those three categories, each army had a lot more in Core.

Looking at my 8th Ed Empire book, you could take Halberdiers, Spearmen, Swordsmen, Handgunners, Crossbowmen, Archers, Free Company, or Knightly Orders. So that's three flavors of core melee block infantry, two flavors of ranged block infantry, a skirmish ranged option, a cheap unarmored multiattack melee unit, and then Knights. That's a decent bit of variety for Core choices in the most vanilla faction in the game and you can build out a bunch of different themes from that selection before you even start looking at Special, Rare, and characters.

The closest counterpart in 40K is Astra Militarum, and there for Troops we have Infantry, Conscripts (who are functionally just an Infantry variant), and Scions. If you have to fill mandatory Troops choices, your options aren't too exciting.

Maybe 40K would be better off taking the WHFB approach. It's not clear to me what purpose the different FOC slots are supposed to serve now that they're no longer individually limited. Easier to balance if you can roughly define how many of a thing an army can take, and make certain options mutually exclusive.

 catbarf wrote:

Voss wrote:
Eh. In the sense that 'guy with spear' is a different unit from 'guy with sword and shield' or 'guy with bow', yeah, I guess. I don't think that's incredibly convincing, though.

But in third edition, percentages caps were for monsters and allies, and the common units were required to have 1+ or 2+ units and the elite stuff was capped at 0-1 or 0-2, and army lists weren't amazingly different.

I think they were more getting at the fact that it was divided into 'Core', 'Special', and 'Rare'. With just those three categories, each army had a lot more in Core.

Looking at my 8th Ed Empire book, you could take Halberdiers, Spearmen, Swordsmen, Handgunners, Crossbowmen, Archers, Free Company, or Knightly Orders. So that's three flavors of core melee block infantry, two flavors of ranged block infantry, a skirmish ranged option, a cheap unarmored multiattack melee unit, and then Knights. That's a decent bit of variety for Core choices in the most vanilla faction in the game and you can build out a bunch of different themes from that selection before you even start looking at Special, Rare, and characters.

I knew what they were getting at. Its just that 'different units' being '30-50% of core' is a stretch for what's basically just weapon swaps. You could do those as individual unit entries, or you could do them on a single unit entry with weapon options. GW has done both. Sometimes in the same army list.

For example, in the 3rd edition warhammer armies book, Helblitzen were 20-60 (models, meaning a minimum of 20 in an army and a max of 60, with a unit size of 10-50). They had halberd, hand weapon and light armor, no options and the standard human statline.
You could also take Ersatzsolders (0-100, unit size of 30-60), that only had hand weapons, but could take halberds, spears or pikes and/or shield and/or light armor. So you could make units entirely identical to Helblitzen, but didn't count for their min or their max.
Similarly, arquebus and crossbow units were identical statwise (but distinct unit sizes, and crossbows also had light armor), but anyone with a bow was a forester or scout (which had their own distinct special rules).

It was a much more straightforward system, but ALL empire armies brought at least 20 halberdiers and 10 crossbowmen to the table. It was required by the minimum unit sizes. Rank and File had to be a minimum of 1/3 of the army, and a max of everything but the cost of a single hero (who by default would be the army general). Characters had a cap of 1/2 the point value, allies 1/3, mercenaries 1/2 and monstrous host 1/4, though obviously you couldn't do all that at once.
The only special rules in the army were scout, forester and flagellants had frenzy and hatred of Chaos. That's it. There was some variation in profiles, thanks to levies and shock elites (Empire didn't have any missile elite)

Incredibly hard to balance, because if we encourage more troops with carrots or sticks, there are some armies that are very happy to have more troops compared to the ones with dogshit troop options.

I personally wish more armies were 'troop' oriented though, with the elite units feeling more, well, elite and less plentiful.

Most 2k point armies you see have a 'minimum' troop count, and if we weren't forced most armies probably wouldn't bring any.

With 9th Edition being so 'killy' though more troops would just be more cannon fodder. Everything does so much damage right now a higher % of troops would just be more stuff getting blapped off the table straight away

SemperMortis wrote:

I think a 10pt Kommando is competitive, but its not broken. Case and point, the competitive lists winning/placing at GT's/Majors aren't taking them.

No-one was taking them because buggy spam was meta. They're amazing for their cost. Forward deployment screws up the enemies movement phase, you can effectively block them out from primary objective points until their command phase turn 3, that's if they're lucky and you haven't capitalised on that.

If anything, stormboys should be 10. Forward deployment is far superior than deep strike. Deep strike can be zoned out, or be intercepted and shot-off with stratagems.




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 catbarf wrote:

The closest counterpart in 40K is Astra Militarum, and there for Troops we have Infantry, Conscripts (who are functionally just an Infantry variant), and Scions. If you have to fill mandatory Troops choices, your options aren't too exciting

If they brought back infantry platoons it might be more exciting for Guard. If they made Veterans troops again that'd be nice too.

Voss wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

Voss wrote:


Weirdly WFB was always a little better about this, and since the % requirements and restrictions were a comfortable part of WFB (for the most part), it makes some sense to look at it for 40k. But it has never worked out.

In fantasy 30-50% of the codex units' were troops though.

Eh. In the sense that 'guy with spear' is a different unit from 'guy with sword and shield' or 'guy with bow', yeah, I guess. I don't think that's incredibly convincing, though.

But in third edition, percentages caps were for monsters and allies, and the common units were required to have 1+ or 2+ units and the elite stuff was capped at 0-1 or 0-2, and army lists weren't amazingly different.

Look, I have a few WHFB codexes.

Orcs and goblins: other than characters there were 7 troops and 12 special/rares. Troops included boyz, boyz with bows, savage boyz, two kinds of goblins, a swarm and a light cavalry, so lots of different stuff actually.

Empire: other than characters there were 9 troops and 6 specials/rares. All troops were guys with X weapon, although some of them (militia and swordsmen) had different stats, except two units of knights, but also specials were just guys with X weapon and some artillery. In practise pretty much everything but artillery was troops.

Dark elves: other than characters there were 3 troops and 10 special/rares. Among troops guys with spears, swords or crossbows were merged into the same datasheet though and the section included an elite infantry squad and light cavalry.

Now we can consider some 40k codexes. By your logic why aren't units like lootas, tankbustas, stormboyz, kommandos, burnaboyz just guys with X weapons and listed among the troop section? Light cavalry was troop in pretty much every codex in fantasy so jetbikes and warbikers could be troops as well.

Same for SM, how many infantry units that aren't troops are just regular guys with X weapon/wargear? Did I convince you now?

If we really want to enforce percentages like fantasy had we definitely need 10-30 (or more) troop options from codexes that include 50-150 datasheets.

If burnaboyz were troops…
Morkdamn.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
If burnaboyz were troops…
Morkdamn.

They were, four codexes (3rd edition) ago

Ultimately the idea is to get people to take what should be the most common and flexible units in their armies that provide the greatest average value.

Unfortunately, these units often are simply just rankly inferior versions of other units, both in absolute and cost-basis performance. Fundamentally, what does a Tactical Squad do that a Devastator squad cannot? The Dev squad gets to take more guns and has a Signum, and is otherwise identical. GW has historically balanced this with Troops scoring requirements or list percentage minimums, but those never really worked particularly well.

This sort of thing really requires a fundamental rethinking of some stuff GW just hasn't wanted to do. You could do something like Heavy Gear, where essentially different FoC slots open different objective choices (e.g. your "elites" may unlock an objective to kill an enemy commander or break into the backfield, your "FA" may unlock an objective that requires you to get close to an enemy unit and scan it, your "troops" may unlock objectives to hold table positions, etc) where if you don't have certain elements you can't score those objectives and your force composition will essentially determine the objectives you pursue, which can be different than your opponent's. GW's concepts of what units do and how that is expressed has always been really badly implemented, choosing instead to represent unit abilities through stats and special rules and points than through other means to shape the battle around. Dropzone Commander requires Infantry (if not specifically Troops) to secure objectives from structures, your tanks aren't going to go searching for documents or transmitter beacons room by room for example, so bringing all the super killy death walkers and strategic bombers won't help you much, you take one or two to support getting your infantry to the objectives, as opposed to 40k where your infantry may just literally be a speedbump meatwall for your tanks.

Vaktathi and yukishiro seem to have it.

OneBoxForOptimism wrote:
With 9th Edition being so 'killy' though more troops would just be more cannon fodder. Everything does so much damage right now a higher % of troops would just be more stuff getting blapped off the table straight away

If there were more troops on the table, the overall killyness would go down, no?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Jarms48 wrote:
... and say something like Kommandos went up to 14 points we'd see more boys.

Careful now. You started your post by saying that we should make Troops better, but one of your suggestions is to artificially inflate the cost of another unit.

Don't punish other units because Troops are bad.

I like how you don't realize both approaches are the exact same thing. Except raising points of other units is better because gives you more granularity in point scale, decreases entry barrier for new players and makes armies less deadly. Which you, funnily enough, complain about in other threads but simplest solution to it, roll back killyness, is somehow bad too. Go figure

People here repeat that troops should just be made better. How? Either you can massively buff them, at which point everything is elite (and elite units completely lose point and purpose in game) or you can nerf too good offenders to make troops worth considered as alternative. I am not convinced it would work though due to multiple armies drowning in WAAAC players - case in point, CSM making fLuFFy armies consisting of zero actual CSM because cultists were 1% more efficient (even thought CSM were fine to everyone who wasn't netlisting) and terminators more rigid and uniformed in weapon choices than any loyalist to WAAAC dump of the most broken weapon, making utter mockery of army fluff. Or tau spamming 6 commanders to WAAAC just as hard making mockery of their own fluff stating there was supposed to be 1 of these per sector, not dozen per small battlefield, gotta munchkin, eh? GW tried to fix that with points for 3 long years and none of it worked, only shifting problematic unit of the week if that.

In the end, the only thing that was shown to consistently work was limits and restrictions - I didn't like capping SM to 1 captain and 2 lieutenants, but I'll say it made the army much more fluffy, killed 3x SM captain commanding 20 guardsmen nonsense, and made other HQ viable - I never saw chaplains through most of 8th edition, but now a lot of lists feature them because option that outshined them too much was nerfed. I also kind of like approach with BT sword champions - you can uniformly outfit them with chainswords or power swords if you like, but spam of alternate weapons is severely restricted to stop cheese - and it's good. Do the same with CSM terminators, and they will finally start to resemble things they are in fluff (ancient veterans, each master of different, favourite weapon) instead of lame WAAAC clones more uniform than AM servitors...

Okay, late to the discussion. I don't have as much direct play experience as most people posting here, and certainly not matched play experience; Crusade is VeRY different since our versions of secondaries don't give us VP.

But as I see it, here's what troops have, and what I assume they are good at as is:

1/ Good for holding objectives via obsec. It's my understanding that most if not all troops HAVE obsec. Non-troops units need something special to get obsec- like a strat or an aura; this provides a mechanism for turning off Obsec for non-troops. Abilities that grant Obsec to non-troops typically DOUBLE it for troops, keeping them on top for securing objectives.

2/ Only detachments that require troops refund CP. While you CAN take a detachment without troops, the CP cost required to do so usually makes it a poor choice. The only time I'd ever consider taking a non-patrol/ battalion/ brigade is when I have no choice- Inquisition, Rogue Trader, Null Maiden Vanguard- or when it is going to be a second detachment anyway.

3/ Troops are good for screening, because if they sacrifice themselves, you aren't losing specialists.

4/ Troops are good for completing battlefield actions that prevent shooting. These might be secondaries for VP or Agendas for XP.

5/ Troops generally have larger unit caps, which can help maximize the impact of certain strats.

6/ This is minor, but if I'm not mistaken, most troop units are pretty much guaranteed to be core while other unit types are somewhat less likely.

Now, to someone without a whole lot of Matched play experience, this seems like a lot of incentives?

Which leaves me with a few questions:

1/ Did I get it right? Are there non-troop units that just get Obsec without the use of a strat or aura?

2/ Do people just load up on kill secondaries exclusively in order to minimize the value of Obsec?

3/ Does anyone ever take action based secondaries?

4/ If additional incentives are needed, would a more restrictive application of Core be viable, or would that whack the game?

As usual, there’s nothing stopping two players who want to run more Troops than Others from doing that. It’s your game, and ‘meta optimal’ doesn’t always equal ‘optimal fun’. Play the game you want to.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
As usual, there’s nothing stopping two players who want to run more Troops than Others from doing that. It’s your game, and ‘meta optimal’ doesn’t always equal ‘optimal fun’. Play the game you want to.

That's not really the topic of the thread.

But thanks for stopping by!