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I'm sure Guard aren't the only thing on the chopping block for nerfs, and in all honesty making them more expensive balances the game more (150 points instead of 120 for 3 infantry squads means less spamming Brigades for command points, even in soups).

I'm curious to see what else is coming in terms of the nerfs (like Dark Reapers), but I wouldn't start flipping tables since we're still a month out and don't know what's coming yet.

Honestly I can see a lot of salt on both sides with this, but I'm going to raise a point here and I fully expect to get yelled at in response. Regardless, here goes:

Points are for competitive play, and since the game is being played competitively they need to be regularly adjusted (regardless of faction) to try and keep the game balanced for tournament play.

Anyone who looks at the way the game is adjusted the Open Play power levels basically never change, but the points values for Matched Play do. Why? Because they're trying to ensure that armies that aren't doing as well in matched play become stronger with more options (see: dropping Primaris points so they'll actually see the table in competitive lists) while combinations that are seeing too much play (due to how strong the combinations are (see: Dark Reapers or Commander Spam)) will see nerfs, be it through points hikes (fully expect one on Dark Reapers) or changes made to the army through the Codex (GW has stated that Commander Spam is going to be addressed in the T'Au codex)).

So yes, it may affect people who don't play competitively but choose to play Matched Play, but in all honesty are we really flipping out over trying to improve game balance? This is the sort of constant tweaking we've been asking for since at least 5th edition (I didn't pay attention back during 3rd and missed 4th but I assume it's the same for those editions as well), and one of the things I've seen people claim that makes Warmachine better than 40k: regular constant tweaking of the game to adjust the meta so the game is more balanced (notice I said "more balanced" and not just "balanced" as no game will ever be perfect) and less exploitable.

Right now one of the things Guard need is to have the basic squads bumped up a little in points because for all they get they're too cheap. 5ppm is still a steal for everything they get (especially Cadia who get baked in re-rolls that Marines have to buy characters for just by being a gunline army that doesn't move) and in all honesty all it's going to do is reduce spamming brigades by a bit since the base cost is going to jump up 30 points per Brigade created (assuming no increase in points on characters). It's not a huge amount, but it might restrict some of the soup spam nonsense that is honestly not healthy for the game.

And while everyone is focused on the Guard, let's be honest, especially after LVO, there are going to be changes to every army. Especially codex armies since those books won't be seeing updates until the rest of the codexes launch. So before we assume Guard are being hosed here, let's wait and see what the whole picture looks like when the dust settles THEN flip out as the internet will do anyways.

Anyways, that's my .02¢ and I fully expect to either be ignored or yelled at for it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

I'm not actually upset that GW is trying to balance the game. I'm a bit upset that they're crowdsourcing the balance to the community, though. I know some ace Warhammer 40k players, and as you can tell by the recent LVO the ace players have moved beyond Guard as other codexes have come out, and the Guard that did show up did splendidly but not dominatingly. This tells me that there's been another meta shift since CA2017 and the recent codexes, and we should wait for it to shake out before making any rash decisions.

We've been seeing for years that the competetive scene is better at finding the broken parts of the game than the studio is (RAW vs RAI being a large part of it). Using them as a metric on what needs fixing is valid, and even if the meta has moved towards Eldar, I'm pretty sure that if we see an Eldar nerf but don't see the less balanced parts of Guard brought into line we'll just return to the pre-Eldar codex meta. So yeah, they BOTH need to see some nerfs (and some buffs on other stuff in the book to balance the "never take" vs "always take" lists).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Instead, however, people that haven't adapted (for whatever reason, I get that some people simply can't) to the new edition and new books are allowed to dictate policy so long as they scream loud enough. It's easier to nerf guardsmen by 25% (by upping their cost) than it is to discover the unique and interesting ways that the tourney players (who no doubt had to kick some Astra Militarum ass to win LVO) have figured out to cope with the problem.

As I've said, if we only nerf the current hotness but leave the previous meta leader alone we'll just step back to whatever was best prior to the current best. So when nerfs are handed out, everything that was on the "auto-include if you want to dominate" lists between one major update and the next should all be addressed. Otherwise all the meta does is step back to the previous broken thing and we don't fix anything properly.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
So, until this becomes a reality, there's no reason to panic.

Imperial Soup, Chaos Soup, and Eldar are simply too strong relative to the field.

There's nothing wrong with toning these factions down slightly so that the rest of us can compete.

Adding 25% to the basic cost of an entire faction's troops choice isn't a slight nerf, lol.

Space Marine players would riot if Tactical Marines went up to 16 points.

Honestly it's slight and has been pointed out (but you ignored) that for a pure-Guard player it basically will change next to nothing in the list (just change some load outs around and you're likely to see no changes to pure Guard armies) but it's going to push Guard soups down.

Marines seeing a points increase takes a mediocre army and makes it bad. Guard seeing a points increase takes a great army and at WORST makes it good instead.

S2 would basically be more of a buff for Marines (only getting wounded on 6s) than anything. I mean basic guard shooting would do half as many wounds against T4/T5 and frankly that's just silly.

 Galas wrote:
Marines are dead. Don't cry for them. The basic marine statline is unbalanceable.
LONG LIVE OUR NEW PRIMARIS OVERLORDS. They are actually balanceable.

Theres no point in bringing basic marines in balance conversations just like theres no point in talking about grey knights. They are a disaster from a design standpoint. They need a rewrite from the ground up. And they have received one: Primaris.

As bait-tastic as this post seems, it's basially not wrong. Primaris DO fix basically everything about Marines. Mainly by giving the units focus. Focusing on shooting OR assault goes a looooong way towards making Marines more playable, especially in the current edition. They need more melee units though.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There are no GK primaris marines (yet).

Since most people are saying that the point increase to guardsmen is really designed to effect soup players rather than guard players why not just say that guardsmen cost +1ppm if the warlord in your army isn't AM and/or if they are in a detachment with non AM models?

That way soup players may be effected but mono AM players aren't.

It's easier to just outright bump their points then force weird stipulations people will just find ways around.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Marines are dead. Don't cry for them. The basic marine statline is unbalanceable.
LONG LIVE OUR NEW PRIMARIS OVERLORDS. They are actually balanceable.

Theres no point in bringing basic marines in balance conversations just like theres no point in talking about grey knights. They are a disaster from a design standpoint. They need a rewrite from the ground up. And they have received one: Primaris.

As bait-tastic as this post seems, it's basially not wrong. Primaris DO fix basically everything about Marines. Mainly by giving the units focus. Focusing on shooting OR assault goes a looooong way towards making Marines more playable, especially in the current edition. They need more melee units though.

I find this "generalists can't exist from a design perspective" really weird.

It's not an opinion I just thought up overnight, but rather one that's formed largely out of how 8th edition works. Vanilla Tacticals are basically broken right now, and not in a good way. They pay to be a melee unit but lack the quantity or quality of attacks to be effective at it, while also paying to be a shooting unit that can be easily outgunned by equivalent points from other armies. And then there is how fragile Marines as a whole are in an edition where being outnumbered often means a quick trip to tabled town.

I'm not saying that they're useless, but when the core of an army is being pushed off for cheaper units (bolter scouts) or units that do the job better (Primaris) then there is something horribly wrong with that unit that needs to be addressed.

I'll be honest, I went back and looked at the Guard codex some more and while there were strong things in there all I got out of it was how to make a Catachan army that stabs things to death with their knives.

FRFSRF > Charge > try and sweep the rest?

I don't know, I feel like there is a lot of interesting stuff in the book outside of the core that people aren't looking at because it's not the easiest way to win, or because it doesn't fit the Cadian gunline (which is the most vanilla, but arguably strongest, build you can have, especially with CP recovery warlords).

Daedalus81 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I'll be honest, I went back and looked at the Guard codex some more and while there were strong things in there all I got out of it was how to make a Catachan army that stabs things to death with their knives.

FRFSRF > Charge > try and sweep the rest?

I don't know, I feel like there is a lot of interesting stuff in the book outside of the core that people aren't looking at because it's not the easiest way to win, or because it doesn't fit the Cadian gunline (which is the most vanilla, but arguably strongest, build you can have, especially with CP recovery warlords).

Oh god yes. I think about funky combos in that book all the time too, but most people just stand around and shoot as much as possible. The army is so damn flexible and players waste the potential.

Wasted potential is pretty common I've found. I don't want to poke any Squig Nests, but let's be honest, your average player looking for an edge will grab the first thing that looks strong rather than looking to make a strong combination of their own.

I've noticed that Catachan basically doesn't care about Vox like some armies do. It's kind of the Officer Spam army since you'll get bonuses to leadership that way while staying in Order range. So that could be saved points for other stuff.

Actually it feels like the perfect army to run massed Hellhounds. Rerolling number of shots is strong when you auto-hit (take track guards so you can threaten an insanely large bubble up until you finally die) they have a strong synergy with Catachan's strategem.

Then again I'm probably used to playing Sisters and trying to light my opponent on fire all the time anyways.

 Valentine009 wrote:
I don't know if this actually goes into the decision making process, but it may be because AdMech is especially dependent on command points to make thier army useful. As a result cheap infantry + cheap HQs (with the new Enginseer), are way more important for them than other factions, especially because you want to load up your heavy support slots with as much points as possible.

I feel like the Rangers might have also been given a price cut because they lack the bonus rule Vanguard have (which makes Vanguard more likely to get up the table and do stuff since they can fight back better, or if they're Graia, shoot people in the face while in melee), and they don't have the range or power of the Destroyers. They're good, but when compared to the other two options they're meh at best. Only one that seems to be worse is the Breachers, but that has to do with those being a unit that have to be shooting AND melee while not being fast or having good transport options.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Colonel Cross wrote:

Martel732 wrote:I've never lost to a primaris list, btw. That includes games with index ba. Tau have a lot of 2 damage weapons on top of str 5 everywhere. This does not invoke faith in your anecdotes.

Well I do play guard and said I was using my friends Tau force to play against his Primaris force ... Literally gave you my impression from using them and thought the Tau suck. I was also talking only about firewarriors. Why are you always so fething salty about everything? Lol. Get a grip homie.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I'll be honest, I went back and looked at the Guard codex some more and while there were strong things in there all I got out of it was how to make a Catachan army that stabs things to death with their knives.

FRFSRF > Charge > try and sweep the rest?

I don't know, I feel like there is a lot of interesting stuff in the book outside of the core that people aren't looking at because it's not the easiest way to win, or because it doesn't fit the Cadian gunline (which is the most vanilla, but arguably strongest, build you can have, especially with CP recovery warlords).

Oh god yes. I think about funky combos in that book all the time too, but most people just stand around and shoot as much as possible. The army is so damn flexible and players waste the potential.

I love to use the mamorth Tuskblade with Straken and a priest around. That's some serious damage that is totally unexpected from guard. Only things that keep it from being great is that Chimeras kinda suck and the officers are squishy as hell.

The generic power sword is pretty decent too (though the damage is more swingy at 1d3). Powerfists look good on Catachan as well (S8 on a T3 model is hilarious).

And yes, Chimeras aren't great, but I think since I'm used to vehicles dying horribly after dropping stuff off I wouldn't feel too bad about losing them late in the game.

Officers are definitely squishy though, but for such a cheap model I can live with that.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I'll be honest, I went back and looked at the Guard codex some more and while there were strong things in there all I got out of it was how to make a Catachan army that stabs things to death with their knives.

FRFSRF > Charge > try and sweep the rest?

I don't know, I feel like there is a lot of interesting stuff in the book outside of the core that people aren't looking at because it's not the easiest way to win, or because it doesn't fit the Cadian gunline (which is the most vanilla, but arguably strongest, build you can have, especially with CP recovery warlords).

The problem with a lot of those other concepts isn't just that theyre not optimal, its that often they just dont work even passingly well. Yeah, you can make funky thematic combos like Ogryn supported Catachan CC lists, but they're going to lead to a lot of games with a predecided outcome in favor of your opponent. Some people are ok with that, but thats not generally going to be a major selling point of any army. IG has had the flexibility to do a lot of these things in most editions, you could make such a force in older editoons as well; but theyve never been very good. Hell, my Stormtrooper army ive been trying to make work since 4E, consisting of chimera mounted stormtroopers, hasn't ever really worked for squat except when proxied as a Mechvets force in 5E, and certainly wouldnt be much fun in 8E.

It also doesnt help that, as you noted, while some units in the codex are very good indeed, there's still a lot of units that either dont fit into doctrine oriented forces well, but there also lots that are just plain bad (e.g. Vanquisher, Eradicator, Deathstrike, Ogryns, Chimeras, Bane Wolfs, etc) and the units that are legitimately good also generally happen to be the ones that synergize best with the two dominant doctrines (catachan and cadian).

I wasn't looking at Ogryn honestly, but more a Mech Guard style army that gets close and tries to sweep things they shoot. Well that or just running so many Infantry Squads on foot my opponent literally can't kill them all in a normal game.

I like Doctrines just like I like Chapter Tactics because they can help make armies fluffier by giving bonuses to playing a certain way. That said, there are definitely less interesting ways to play the same rules (go all tanks and run Catachan for example).

And I'd say Vostroyans are a good gunline if only because basically everything in their army can reach out and touch the opponent easier. Good models too if you can handle metal that is. They're not Cadia tier (only because of the lack of free rerolls for not moving) but they're still good.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I know the whole AdMech thing is off topic, but what Skitarii really need is transports of some kind. With the loss of Scout, they're even less quick than before.

Lorewise the Dunecrawler is based off of an ancient transport design, so I could see it getting an alternate kit for a transport variant in the future.

And yeah, since Rangers lose their extra movement bonuses they're definitely not as interesting to most people I think. I've only seen them as a way to run the Arquebus and not really anything else.

That aside, they really could be 7 or 8 points when compared to the game overall. They're kind of a 7.5ppm unit so it's kind of close either way.

Regardless, pushing regular guard to 5ppm still works for me (makes Conscripts better by making them the cheaper option again, and makes Vets feel less like a major investment over regular Guard. Basically it helps internal codex balance a bit).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I know the whole AdMech thing is off topic, but what Skitarii really need is transports of some kind. With the loss of Scout, they're even less quick than before.

Lorewise the Dunecrawler is based off of an ancient transport design, so I could see it getting an alternate kit for a transport variant in the future.

And yeah, since Rangers lose their extra movement bonuses they're definitely not as interesting to most people I think. I've only seen them as a way to run the Arquebus and not really anything else.

That aside, they really could be 7 or 8 points when compared to the game overall. They're kind of a 7.5ppm unit so it's kind of close either way.

Regardless, pushing regular guard to 5ppm still works for me (makes Conscripts better by making them the cheaper option again, and makes Vets feel less like a major investment over regular Guard. Basically it helps internal codex balance a bit).

I personally think Conscripts need to go back to 3 points (they were already hit enough in the codex), Infantry squads be 5 points, and Vets go back to Troops and being 6.5 per model instead of 7 (you're not able to buy extra dudes anyway, so does the decimal value matter?)
Or were Vets 6 points? If they are thay can stay at that point cost if they're moved to Troops. It's ridiculous that they're not troops but Scions are.

I don't like the idea of pushing Conscripts back down in points. 40 for 10 feels right to me. And no half points please. It's fiddly and annoying.

I don't have a book on hand, but are Veterans locked into set unit sizes?

I think the reason the current Commissar looks bad is because people want the one that was completely better they had before.

Regardless of the reason of why, if a certain combo dominates with no reasonable counters being available then that combo needs to be nerfed. Unnerfing it because something stronger comes along isn't the solution, the solution is to fix that thing that is stronger and bring everything down to the same level (or bring things up if they're too weak and never see the table).

By extension, just because something doesn't get fixed the first time (cost of Infantry squads which really should be more than they are and that's speaking even as someone who has become interested in running a Guard army for the first time since ever) doesn't mean it shouldn't be corrected when the imbalance is spotted later.

The Guard are still really good even after the thought of bumping Infantry squads up 10 points/unit.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I'll be honest, I went back and looked at the Guard codex some more and while there were strong things in there all I got out of it was how to make a Catachan army that stabs things to death with their knives.

FRFSRF > Charge > try and sweep the rest?

I don't know, I feel like there is a lot of interesting stuff in the book outside of the core that people aren't looking at because it's not the easiest way to win, or because it doesn't fit the Cadian gunline (which is the most vanilla, but arguably strongest, build you can have, especially with CP recovery warlords).

The problem with a lot of those other concepts isn't just that theyre not optimal, its that often they just dont work even passingly well. Yeah, you can make funky thematic combos like Ogryn supported Catachan CC lists, but they're going to lead to a lot of games with a predecided outcome in favor of your opponent. Some people are ok with that, but thats not generally going to be a major selling point of any army. IG has had the flexibility to do a lot of these things in most editions, you could make such a force in older editoons as well; but theyve never been very good. Hell, my Stormtrooper army ive been trying to make work since 4E, consisting of chimera mounted stormtroopers, hasn't ever really worked for squat except when proxied as a Mechvets force in 5E, and certainly wouldnt be much fun in 8E.

It also doesnt help that, as you noted, while some units in the codex are very good indeed, there's still a lot of units that either dont fit into doctrine oriented forces well, but there also lots that are just plain bad (e.g. Vanquisher, Eradicator, Deathstrike, Ogryns, Chimeras, Bane Wolfs, etc) and the units that are legitimately good also generally happen to be the ones that synergize best with the two dominant doctrines (catachan and cadian).

I don't think enough people have taken it from concept to table for that to be true. If I were made of money I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Case in point (not a thoughtful list, but something that shows a derided unit - even in posts above - can be very successful):
https://spikeybits.com/2018/02/why-the-15-hellhound-ringer-army-is-my-hero.html

15 Hellhounds is silly for sure, but they are a solid choice in Guard regardless of which Doctrine you run.

And yes, it definitely is a thing that the army ideas people dream up don't always see the table. Thankfully I'm getting a tax return this month which will go towards my plastic crack addiction so at least I'll be putting my craziness into reality.

Seriously, why take a rule that makes your dudes better at punching things if you're not going to punch things? I'm still fiddling with how to build the army, but punching things is going to be a thing. Actually now I kind of want to do some math to see if Catachan melee wounds more than their shooting (before factoring in special weapons)....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Methinks we are vastly overvaluing the Commissar, especially outside the Conscript application. Given the subsequent changes to Conscripts and other things, as well as multiple subsequent codex releases, I hardly think we'd see Commissars radically alter anything if changed back, and the Commissar never had anything near the utility on things like 10man infantry squads that they did on Conscripts.

Perhaps, but I think that it's more likely that we won't see a rollback on changes if there is a problem but rather something else done if the Commissar is truly worthless in their current form.

 Colonel Cross wrote:
I never used conscripts but I did run pre Nerf Commissars. You folks do realize that the Commissar without upgraded weapons was 3/4 the cost of an infantry squad? I used to run 2 of them in my 2k infantry list. But since I stopped using them I managed to get more infantry with another plasma gun or two. Commissars aren't missed and if you brought them back to index level, I doubt we'd see many return to the table top.

And punchy Catachan lists can work. Just only against non CC dedicated armies.

To be fair, I was thinking punchy Catachan would be like more fragile punchy Marines: mostly shooty with okay melee options. Basically I wouldn't expect them to wipe something like Genestealers (that's what the artillery is for ).

Commissars were an issue in the competitive scene. While people wants to pretend that it doesn't effect their more casual metas there are always going to be issues with people latching onto strong netlist combos (especially veteran players who can just shuffle their collection around a little to make it work without spending more money) and using them to try and steam roll people.

Basically just because the problem is bigger in the tournament scene doesn't mean it's not a problem. Anytime the game can be abused like that should be addressed, regardless of source.

Honestly I rather hate the term "soup". It made sense when everything was being thrown into a single pot (detachment) with the indicies but now you're getting a full meal made of separate dishes (detachments).

Basically it's no different than the allied armies of 6th and 7th in execution so I don't see the point of calling "soup" anymore.

That said, there are a LOT of fluffy reasons to mix armies, but yes, we definitely lack some rewards for monocodex (relics don't count since you can just buy into some by spending CP for your allied armies). I don't want to see them go away, but there definitely needs to be a way to balance this more so people don't immediately latch onto building multiple detachments out of multiple books as the strongest method.

 Colonel Cross wrote:
Yeah Commissars would probably require a different way to interact with conscripts vs guardsmen if they were to rework Commissars.

Perhaps (potentially) killing more Conscripts (say D3) vs regular Guard (1)?

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Or not working on conscripts because morale is the intended method of killing large hordes?

Perhaps, but since not having a morale balancing option like some other hordes Conscripts are currently being left on the shelf, so -something- needs to be done to balance that.

 Colonel Cross wrote:
This thread has really run amok. Lol.

Basilisks, Manticores, Leman Russes, Infantry Squads, mortars, company commanders, now back to Commissars and conscripts. I half expect someone to propose simply removing the army from the game by page 30.

"REMOVE IG! REGULAR HUMANS HAVE NO PLACE IN AGE OF SIGMAR 40K!"

There, that's out of the way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Or not working on conscripts because morale is the intended method of killing large hordes?

Perhaps, but since not having a morale balancing option like some other hordes Conscripts are currently being left on the shelf, so -something- needs to be done to balance that.

IG aren't a horde. The fact that they could be an effective horde, while ALSO being the best gunline, was broken.

There should be no morale immunity for conscripts, nor guardsmen. The Commissar shooting someone for an optional reroll is the best method in my opinion. From a lore standpoint, their ability cannot be better than "AND THEY SHALL KNOW NO FEAR," this morale ability should be the baseline by which humans take morale checks.

Pre-nerf, Guard were a better horde army that Orks, and Tyranids. That right there should tell you something his HORRIBLY wrong.

You guys are absolutely understating how broken things were prior to this nerf.

Guard bring horde numbers, but only have one horde unit: Conscripts. A horde unit that no one uses because it lacks a balance mechanic to make it possible to make it a little more durable for a price. Horde armies have a balance mechanic that keeps horde units from being completely worthless by paying for something to balance out the morale (synapse, mob rule). I'm not saying we need to go back to where we were, but Conscripts definitely need something. And no, no one is going to run them in large hordes just because they're cheap if they can't mitigate their ld problems on some level.

I'm not underestimating how broken things were, just stating that there is a problem with the army that comes from it being a horde army that pretends it isn't a horde while the one true horde unit in it can't even act like a proper horde because it can't mitigate it's losses.

 supreme overlord wrote:
I feel like I'm beating a dead horse over here but I really like soup armies.This is the perfect edition to build a really fluffy inquisitor army and I'm taking full advantage of it. If GW stopped soup it would pretty much kill the fluffy play style I use.

Agreed. I don't see the soups going away honestly, outside of perhaps being banned in tournament armies, but I could see restrictions cropping up for matched play.

Well considering how heated this has gotten it makes me glad that I stepped out of here for a bit and just watched the madness unfold.

First off, for anyone who claims that we shouldn't see 5ppm Guardsmen, you're frankly just being silly at this point. Not only does this correct the internal balance issue inside of your own book between Conscripts, Guardsman and Veterans but it also means you're less likely to be dragged into soup lists as easily so all the bandwagon players can leave your army alone in favor of whatever new flavor of the month rolls out next.

8th edition is the edition of constant updates and tweaks. EVERY army will be going through similar things (particularly after they have codexes based on how index only factions aren't really mucked with as much so far) and will see units go up and down in points as the game continues to evolve and grow.

Basically, this is going to be a reoccurring thing for some time to come and Guard aren't special. This isn't a malevolent plot against your army, it's just how the game works for every army.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Well considering how heated this has gotten it makes me glad that I stepped out of here for a bit and just watched the madness unfold.

First off, for anyone who claims that we shouldn't see 5ppm Guardsmen, you're frankly just being silly at this point. Not only does this correct the internal balance issue inside of your own book between Conscripts, Guardsman and Veterans but it also means you're less likely to be dragged into soup lists as easily so all the bandwagon players can leave your army alone in favor of whatever new flavor of the month rolls out next.

You know what else would have done that?

"Battleline If"

Age of Sigmar literally has shown ways to tone down "soup" style lists. It has to deal with the way that Battleline units work, where a certain percentage of your army has to be made up of them and they have the term of "Battleline If" for a unit where if you're taking a pure army("Allegiance") it becomes Battleline rather than just being a normal unit. There's also units that become "Battleline If" when you have the Allegiance and a specific Hero.

Fair point. This WOULD help a lot in 40k and may be a future change. GW seems to be fond of trying out beta rule changes at tournaments so it may come in (likely not the next CA as I'll explain in the second half of this post, but in the future it's possible).

 Kanluwen wrote:

8th edition is the edition of constant updates and tweaks. EVERY army will be going through similar things (particularly after they have codexes based on how index only factions aren't really mucked with as much so far) and will see units go up and down in points as the game continues to evolve and grow.

Basically, this is going to be a reoccurring thing for some time to come and Guard aren't special. This isn't a malevolent plot against your army, it's just how the game works for every army.

What armies have gotten these tweaks?

Which armies between the launch of 8th edition and the 4-6 months before before CA dropped had an outright need to be fixed?

Because I think that's what people are forgetting here: these books are finished MONTHS in advance of release. CA's changes weren't a knee jerk reaction to the codex's performance, it was a follow up to data from the problems caused by the INDEX. In all likelihood the Guard codex was likely done and off at the printer's when they sat down to work on CA and realized there was a problem with Conscripts and Commissars that they hadn't noticed because they were likely not a focus of play testing (basically being the index entries ported over after all) so they fixed the problem in CA, and sent that off to the printers resulting in the way the changes came out.

If Dark Reapers were rocking everyone's socks off at the drop of 8th with their abilities and the Craftworld codex got rolled out right before CA, we would have seen the same exact thing happen there. It's just a matter of timing, not a conspiracy. Stop martyrying your army, it had issues that the rules team addressed (perhaps too far, but sometimes balancing takes time to work out a unit's sweet spot gameplay wise) and the balances we'll be seeing now are based on the codex, not the index.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Fair point. This WOULD help a lot in 40k and may be a future change. GW seems to be fond of trying out beta rule changes at tournaments so it may come in (likely not the next CA as I'll explain in the second half of this post, but in the future it's possible).

It's something that they've done in AoS. It works. It's stupid that their brand new edition, which modeled itself in a lot of ways after AoS, didn't have it.

Which armies between the launch of 8th edition and the 4-6 months before before CA dropped had an outright need to be fixed?

Because I think that's what people are forgetting here: these books are finished MONTHS in advance of release. CA's changes weren't a knee jerk reaction to the codex's performance, it was a follow up to data from the problems caused by the INDEX. In all likelihood the Guard codex was likely done and off at the printer's when they sat down to work on CA and realized there was a problem with Conscripts and Commissars that they hadn't noticed because they were likely not a focus of play testing (basically being the index entries ported over after all) so they fixed the problem in CA, and sent that off to the printers resulting in the way the changes came out.

If Dark Reapers were rocking everyone's socks off at the drop of 8th with their abilities and the Craftworld codex got rolled out right before CA, we would have seen the same exact thing happen there. It's just a matter of timing, not a conspiracy. Stop martyrying your army, it had issues that the rules team addressed (perhaps too far, but sometimes balancing takes time to work out a unit's sweet spot gameplay wise) and the balances we'll be seeing now are based on the codex, not the index.

The problem with this idea is that it ignores that the "Raw Recruits" rule was such a half-assed thing(Literally--it's "Roll a D6, on a 4+ Orders work on this unit"), it likely was (as you said) done and off to the printer's...yet it was still worked in.
Same with the Command Squads change.

It would have been a big ol' heap of nothing to ensure that a few more tweaks could have been done. Things like "Conscripts require an Imperial Guard Warlord" or things like that.

Maybe, but we honestly don't know how far the gap was between one book being worked on and the other.

That said, the change to the game to make it less soupy would be great, I won't deny that in the least, but since we didn't get that (perhaps it won't happen until the last codex drops if they're trying to keep from punishing players who play stuff like Sisters of Silence or Inquisition) then it's kind of a moot point. Hypotheticals on how they can fix the core game are just that: hypothetical.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Maybe, but we honestly don't know how far the gap was between one book being worked on and the other.

If they were such an issue from the Index onwards, you'd think they would have been a key unit identified for changes.

It's possible that not all the data was in at the time, or perhaps there was a large event between when the Guard book and the CA book being worked on that pointed out there was an issue with Commissars as a whole. Without direct studio comment it's hard to know, but "should have put it in the codex" is just wishful thinking considering the turn around time between finishing the books and release.

 Kanluwen wrote:

That said, the change to the game to make it less soupy would be great, I won't deny that in the least, but since we didn't get that (perhaps it won't happen until the last codex drops if they're trying to keep from punishing players who play stuff like Sisters of Silence or Inquisition) then it's kind of a moot point. Hypotheticals on how they can fix the core game are just that: hypothetical.

I mean, I think there's not really going to be a system that won't affect things like Sisters of Silence(at least until they have their own full book). No matter how it goes it's gonna hurt the small-ish lists. I could see Inquisitors getting a rule like the new Harbingers and stuff.

It's just an assumption on my part on why they may have chosen to not rolled out the Sigmar style ruleset. Or it was an intentional thing since 40k faction lines are more blurred than Sigmar ones and the side-effect is the soup we see on the table. It's hard to pin down designer intent so all I can do is guess.

Honestly the only things I use mathhammer for is comparing two near identical choices for TAC purposes. A perfect example of this is power swords vs power mauls for Sisters. Swords are better if you're S4, but on S3 Sisters the Mauls are better the TAC choice.

Some people take it a little too far in my opinion (basically using it to write their entire list based on mathematical efficiency and not unit role or even how to use them effectively) and that's where it all gets a little silly.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I do think the difference between a good player and a great player is the ability to math-hammer, and then the ability to see past it.

I think a good player can calculate averages fairly well, and that informs his firepower and movement and whatnot.

I think a great player does the same thing, but also asks himself what his plan is if a critical roll (e.g. I must knock out that land raider in the movement phase to charge the contents in the assault phase!) goes awry (do I have more lascannons than planned for pointed at it? Do I have some other way of killing it?).

If the dice don't go a good player's way, his plan falls apart. If the dice don't go a great player's way, his backup plan kicks into motion and he can still hobble along and at least accomplish some things. And then his dice betray him again and he loses anyways

A good player will scoop when things go poorly, a great player will try and turn it around despite being on the back foot. I won't claim to be a great player, but I've had my moments. Like taking a game versus Necrons in 7th edition and winning thanks to having 3 Sisters on the table holding objectives versus his army that lost like 5 models in total.

It's definitely a mentality thing to try and find ways to salvage poor dice rolls, unexpected mishaps and general warp based shenanigans that pushes someone past being "good" to being "great".


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 Kanluwen wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Maybe, but we honestly don't know how far the gap was between one book being worked on and the other.

If they were such an issue from the Index onwards, you'd think they would have been a key unit identified for changes.

It's possible that not all the data was in at the time, or perhaps there was a large event between when the Guard book and the CA book being worked on that pointed out there was an issue with Commissars as a whole. Without direct studio comment it's hard to know, but "should have put it in the codex" is just wishful thinking considering the turn around time between finishing the books and release.

With how big of a change they had ready to go on the Commissars within the course of 15 days? I'm sorry, I just can't buy into that. Yes yes yes--"It was problems from the Index onwards! Books are quick turnaround!".
We had the Indexes released in what, June/July?
Guard book went up for preorder on September 30th, released on October 7th. FAQ that gutted Commissars was the 22nd.

There is quite a bit of time there where things could have been looked at.

15 days? Citation needed if that was the turn around between when the Guard codex was finished and the CA book was worked on. For all we know Guard may have been done before 8th was ready for release. Seriously, please quite assuming that the gutting was done directly to hurt your codex and pretending the issue didn't start with the Index.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

15 days? Citation needed if that was the turn around between when the Guard codex was finished and the CA book was worked on. For all we know Guard may have been done before 8th was ready for release. Seriously, please quite assuming that the gutting was done directly to hurt your codex and pretending the issue didn't start with the Index.

Every codex gets a FAQ within 2 weeks of release. It is very likely the book was written prior to other issues they noticed and tossed it into the FAQ since it was appropriate.

Most likely, yes, the stuff in the FAQ were things that found between book being sent to printing and release. I'm going to say it wasn't in 15 days though, and more 4-6 months minimum. But let's not ruin the claims being made by guard players to justify their crumbling stance about how they're mistreated when everything that has come out lines up in a logical sense and wasn't just some attempt to ruin their army.