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 ross-128 wrote:


For example, the only difference between Conscripts, Guardsmen, and Veterans is their WS and BS scores (5+/4+/3+ respectively). This allows us to isolate what WS and BS are worth in GW's eyes: going from 5/5 to 4/4 is worth 1 point to them, going from 4/4 to 3/3 is worth 2 points. So a 5/5 space marine with a lasgun would theoretically cost 7 points, while still being T4/3+ along with S4, LD7, and ATSKNF.

If the point costs are calculated like that, why are guardsmen 4 ppm and cultists 5 ppm while having same stats but a worse save?

 ross-128 wrote:

I'm pretty sure he's using immortals as an example for exactly that reason: they have no free weapon, so they're crystal clear about how much they're paying for their model, and how much they're paying for their weapon.

A Marine gets a bolter and bolt pistol for free, which on a model that doesn't get them for free is 1 point each. Those 2 points are baked into the space marine's base cost. A space marine with a lasgun would theoretically cost 10 points. ATSKNF goes into it, S4 goes into it, WS3+ and BS3+ go into it, LD goes into it, though we obviously don't know how much each individually contributes (some are probably only worth fractions of a point).

For example, the only difference between Conscripts, Guardsmen, and Veterans is their WS and BS scores (5+/4+/3+ respectively). This allows us to isolate what WS and BS are worth in GW's eyes: going from 5/5 to 4/4 is worth 1 point to them, going from 4/4 to 3/3 is worth 2 points. So a 5/5 space marine with a lasgun would theoretically cost 7 points, while still being T4/3+ along with S4, LD7, and ATSKNF.

Basically, the reason conscripts are so good at putting wounds on the table is that they're min-maxed to do exactly that. They're one T3/5+ wound with a gun and not much else. The only model that min-maxes that parameter harder is brimstone horrors, because they sacrifice having a ranged weapon to squeeze down to 2 points (though obviously, having no ranged weapon at all compromises their offense pretty severely). When you pick up other features, of course you sacrifice wound-per-point efficiency because those other features raise your cost without increasing your wounds.

It's just that with the change to templates and the wound chart, "putting wounds on the table" now happens to be a strong parameter to optimize for.

Yes, I think my post shows that I understood what he was trying to do. I explained at some length why this makes no sense -- the actual division of point costs between base models and mandatory wargear has no relationship to anything involved in actually playing the game, and there's no reason to think it should. It is mostly a function of what options other units in the same index have access to.

What you're suggesting also makes no sense. This is a terrible way to try to think about how many points different things are worth -- you can't consider all of these stats independently of the others. I mean, obviously the difference between a BS3+ Warlord Titan and a BS5+ Warlord Titan should be more than 2 points. Right? Ultimately, in almost all cases BS just acts as a multiplier to firepower -- a gun firing at BS3+ will do about twice as much damage as a gun firing at BS5+. Going from BS5+ to BS3+ is a lot like doubling the number of shots all of a model's guns get, and so would be worth similar points. The value of BS basically depends on how much firepower a model has, though of course it also depends on how durable it is since being durable lets you stick around and shoot for longer. So Marines are actually pretty bad at shooting -- 13 points per model for a BS3+ bolter is not very scary.

As people have pointed out many times, Guardsmen -- even Conscripts -- don't actually have bad firepower. They're not min-maxed for wounds on the board at all. It's bizarre to talk like BS4+ and a lasgun are bad buys for 4 points per model. Guardsmen outshoot Marines against literally everything for cost. Conscripts outshoot Marines against literally everything for cost, though just barely against T6 and T7 and of course in many situations you'll have a hard time squeezing them all in. The point is that these are not notably low-firepower units compared to other infantry, even if maybe in real situations they're often not actually better at shooting than Marines (though of course Orders are also a thing, so in many real situations they are much better). It's at least clear that they're not meaningfully sacrificing shootiness for wound-per-point efficiency. What they're actually sacrificing, of course, is toughness and armor. It's just that toughness doesn't matter as much anymore and a 5+ save is much better relative to a 3+ save now than it used to be. So the new rules are a massive buff to models like this.

Because they aren't calculated like that. GW arrives at a ballpark number sort of like that, then adjusts it up or down depending on how it feels to them.

It shows up really well in the craftworld index, where some bits of gear are baked in and others very much not, but basic eldar models range from 5 to 17 points. even naked ones like dark reapers and fire dragons that pay for their weapons have a high variance with very similar profiles.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 ross-128 wrote:

I'm pretty sure he's using immortals as an example for exactly that reason: they have no free weapon, so they're crystal clear about how much they're paying for their model, and how much they're paying for their weapon.

A Marine gets a bolter and bolt pistol for free, which on a model that doesn't get them for free is 1 point each. Those 2 points are baked into the space marine's base cost. A space marine with a lasgun would theoretically cost 10 points. ATSKNF goes into it, S4 goes into it, WS3+ and BS3+ go into it, LD goes into it, though we obviously don't know how much each individually contributes (some are probably only worth fractions of a point).

For example, the only difference between Conscripts, Guardsmen, and Veterans is their WS and BS scores (5+/4+/3+ respectively). This allows us to isolate what WS and BS are worth in GW's eyes: going from 5/5 to 4/4 is worth 1 point to them, going from 4/4 to 3/3 is worth 2 points. So a 5/5 space marine with a lasgun would theoretically cost 7 points, while still being T4/3+ along with S4, LD7, and ATSKNF.

Basically, the reason conscripts are so good at putting wounds on the table is that they're min-maxed to do exactly that. They're one T3/5+ wound with a gun and not much else. The only model that min-maxes that parameter harder is brimstone horrors, because they sacrifice having a ranged weapon to squeeze down to 2 points (though obviously, having no ranged weapon at all compromises their offense pretty severely). When you pick up other features, of course you sacrifice wound-per-point efficiency because those other features raise your cost without increasing your wounds.

It's just that with the change to templates and the wound chart, "putting wounds on the table" now happens to be a strong parameter to optimize for.

Yes, I think my post shows that I understood what he was trying to do. I explained at some length why this makes no sense -- the actual division of point costs between base models and mandatory wargear has no relationship to anything involved in actually playing the game, and there's no reason to think it should. It is mostly a function of what options other units in the same index have access to.

What you're suggesting also makes no sense. This is a terrible way to try to think about how many points different things are worth -- you can't consider all of these stats independently of the others. I mean, obviously the difference between a BS3+ Warlord Titan and a BS5+ Warlord Titan should be more than 2 points. Right? Ultimately, in almost all cases BS just acts as a multiplier to firepower -- a gun firing at BS3+ will do about twice as much damage as a gun firing at BS5+. Going from BS5+ to BS3+ is a lot like doubling the number of shots all of a model's guns get, and so would be worth similar points. The value of BS basically depends on how much firepower a model has, though of course it also depends on how durable it is since being durable lets you stick around and shoot for longer. So Marines are actually pretty bad at shooting -- 13 points per model for a BS3+ bolter is not very scary.

As people have pointed out many times, Guardsmen -- even Conscripts -- don't actually have bad firepower. They're not min-maxed for wounds on the board at all. It's bizarre to talk like BS4+ and a lasgun are bad buys for 4 points per model. Guardsmen outshoot Marines against literally everything for cost. Conscripts outshoot Marines against literally everything for cost, though just barely against T6 and T7 and of course in many situations you'll have a hard time squeezing them all in. The point is that these are not notably low-firepower units compared to other infantry, even if maybe in real situations they're often not actually better at shooting than Marines (though of course Orders are also a thing, so in many real situations they are much better). It's at least clear that they're not meaningfully sacrificing shootiness for wound-per-point efficiency. What they're actually sacrificing, of course, is toughness and armor. It's just that toughness doesn't matter as much anymore and a 5+ save is much better relative to a 3+ save now than it used to be. So the new rules are a massive buff to models like this.

That kind of separation between model and weapon does need to be accounted for though. For example, if I complained about how terrible a lascannon HWT was at putting wounds on the table (24 points for 2 T3/5+ wounds!), while completely ignoring the fact that it has a lascannon, surely you'd point out that the wounds aren't what I'm paying for? (or more accurately, I'm only paying 4 points for those wounds, the other 20 is the lascannon).

 ross-128 wrote:

That kind of separation between model and weapon does need to be accounted for though. For example, if I complained about how terrible a lascannon HWT was at putting wounds on the table (24 points for 2 T3/5+ wounds!), while completely ignoring the fact that it has a lascannon, surely you'd point out that the wounds aren't what I'm paying for? (or more accurately, I'm only paying 4 points for those wounds, the other 20 is the lascannon).

Yeah, of course. Obviously when you're evaluating units you need to be thinking about all this stuff. It's just sort of a mistake to talk like the wounds and the firepower are separable. You're paying 24 points for the wounds and the lascannon. If your heavy weapon is in a unit with lasgun infantry then you need to evaluate the whole unit. You want to think about what it can kill at what range and how tough it is to kill and how its firepower degrades as it takes hits. And of course how fast it is matters, and a bunch of other stuff.

But, like, a lascannon heavy weapon team really is sacrificing durability for shootiness. It's a lot better against many targets for cost, and from farther away. It takes only about 24 points of lascannon heavy weapon team to expect to put a wound on T8 W6 3+ from 48". It takes 351 points of tactical marines to do that from 24". Or 144 points of lasgun Guardsmen. This is real firepower. Meanwhile, of course, it dies easier than 8 points of Guardsmen. These are important things to think about when considering the unit. Looking at this, you might conclude that it makes more sense to put your lascannon team in an infantry squad so that your enemy has to get through 8 cheap lasgun Guardsmen to get to the high-firepower lascannon team, while putting much cheaper heavy weapons like mortars on your heavy weapon squads.

My point was that Guardsmen and Conscripts don't actually sacrifice firepower in exchange for their increased durability over Marines. They're better against literally everything for cost, in a pack-everything-into-24"-and-shoot sense, and are rarely that much worse even accounting for Marines having a much easier time getting everyone into range. Like, if a lascannon team cost 300 points you'd be crazy to take it, and it'd make no sense to argue that it's somehow trading lower durability for increased firepower -- it wouldn't really have significantly increased firepower for its cost. You'd be paying an incredible amount of points for a range advantage while giving up a huge amount of durability.

Going back to the idea of anti-horde weapons for a moment, one point I'd like to make is that I think such weapons should be exclusively anti-horde.

One of the issues in past editions was that a lot of weapons were basically good against hordes by default (simply by virtue of being blast/template weapons), without needing to sacrifice strength or AP.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 ross-128 wrote:

That kind of separation between model and weapon does need to be accounted for though. For example, if I complained about how terrible a lascannon HWT was at putting wounds on the table (24 points for 2 T3/5+ wounds!), while completely ignoring the fact that it has a lascannon, surely you'd point out that the wounds aren't what I'm paying for? (or more accurately, I'm only paying 4 points for those wounds, the other 20 is the lascannon).

Yeah, of course. Obviously when you're evaluating units you need to be thinking about all this stuff. It's just sort of a mistake to talk like the wounds and the firepower are separable. You're paying 24 points for the wounds and the lascannon. If your heavy weapon is in a unit with lasgun infantry then you need to evaluate the whole unit. You want to think about what it can kill at what range and how tough it is to kill and how its firepower degrades as it takes hits. And of course how fast it is matters, and a bunch of other stuff.

But, like, a lascannon heavy weapon team really is sacrificing durability for shootiness. It's a lot better against many targets for cost, and from farther away. It takes only about 24 points of lascannon heavy weapon team to expect to put a wound on T8 W6 3+ from 48". It takes 351 points of tactical marines to do that from 24". Or 144 points of lasgun Guardsmen. This is real firepower. Meanwhile, of course, it dies easier than 8 points of Guardsmen. These are important things to think about when considering the unit. Looking at this, you might conclude that it makes more sense to put your lascannon team in an infantry squad so that your enemy has to get through 8 cheap lasgun Guardsmen to get to the high-firepower lascannon team, while putting much cheaper heavy weapons like mortars on your heavy weapon squads.

My point was that Guardsmen and Conscripts don't actually sacrifice firepower in exchange for their increased durability over Marines. They're better against literally everything for cost, in a pack-everything-into-24"-and-shoot sense, and are rarely that much worse even accounting for Marines having a much easier time getting everyone into range. Like, if a lascannon team cost 300 points you'd be crazy to take it, and it'd make no sense to argue that it's somehow trading lower durability for increased firepower -- it wouldn't really have significantly increased firepower for its cost.

What Space Marines pay for is "a little bit of everything".

BS3+ with a S4 weapon is undeniably better than 5+ at S3 when both are Rapid 1 24", no? So they pay for it. You can argue that they pay too much for it perhaps, but you can't possibly argue that they shouldn't pay for it at all.

They also have a WS3+ and S4 melee attack. Two of them, if you include the pistol. They pay for that. It doesn't help their durability or their shooting at all, but they pay for it even when they're not using it.

They have LD8/7 (depending on if the sergeant is alive) and re-roll morale tests. They pay for that, even if they're not making a morale test.

And of course, they're T4 with 3+. They have to pay for that too, even when they're getting shot by a weapon that ignores both.

That's why Space Marines don't excel at any one thing. No matter what they're doing at the time, they're paying for "dead weight" that they're not using. That's the cost of their flexibility.

None of those things single-handedly account for the cost alone. Some of them might not even be worth a full point on their own. But they do add up when you have ALL of them.

Just like that HWT has to pay for that lascannon, even if he's somehow managed to get stuck in melee. What makes the HWT efficient at putting that lascannon on the table is that it does literally nothing else, so as long as it's sitting in the back doing its job, it has zero dead weight.

Compared to Guard, Marines are both easier to fit into cover and on balance get way more out of it. Going from a 3+ save to a 2+ save is a huge deal vs basic weapons

MaxT wrote:
Compared to Guard, Marines are both easier to fit into cover and on balance get way more out of it. Going from a 3+ save to a 2+ save is a huge deal vs basic weapons

For the curious, the benefits of cover explained:

7+ save -> 6+ save: Probably doesn't help much. Goes from auto-taking it to a 6+ save against AP0 small arms for a 20% upgrade in survivability; it takes 1.2 wounds to deal an unsaved wound instead of 1.
6+ save->5+ save: Slightly more significant. Going from a 6+ save to a 5+ save against AP0 small arms is a 25% upgrade in survivability; it takes 1.5 wounds to deal an unsaved wound instead of 1.2.
5+ save->4+ save: Better still. You start to have a meaningful save against AP-1 machine-gun attacks, and you've got a 33% upgrade in survivability against AP0 small arms; 2 wounds to deal one unsaved wound instead of 1.5.
4+ save->3+ save: Quite good. 50% increase in survivability against AP0 small arms (3 wounds to deal one unsaved instead of 2), and you're getting a meaningful save against anything short of dedicated anti-armour weapons. Not necessarily meaningful enough given that this is the point where you start needing to pay a lot more for your models (you can get 5+-armour dudes for 5pts, but you start needing to pay 10pts for 4+-armour dudes), but still quite an improvement.
3+ save->2+ save: Awesome. 100% increase in survivability against AP0 small arms (6 wounds needed to deal one unsaved instead of 3), you start to make anti-armour attacks sit up and take notice.
2+ save->1+ save: Now you're just showing off.
1+ save->0+ save: Really? Why is this even here? (The Scarab Occult, in case anyone was both curious and wanted to see someone getting a 2+ save against Flash Gitz as a middle finger to their Flashiness.)

(So yes. Cover is worth about 3x as much to Marines as it is to Guard against most small arms.)

 ross-128 wrote:

What Space Marines pay for is "a little bit of everything".

BS3+ with a S4 weapon is undeniably better than 5+ at S3 when both are Rapid 1 24", no? So they pay for it. You can argue that they pay too much for it perhaps, but you can't possibly argue that they shouldn't pay for it at all.

They also have a WS3+ and S4 melee attack. Two of them, if you include the pistol. They pay for that. It doesn't help their durability or their shooting at all, but they pay for it even when they're not using it.

They have LD8/7 (depending on if the sergeant is alive) and re-roll morale tests. They pay for that, even if they're not making a morale test.

And of course, they're T4 with 3+. They have to pay for that too, even when they're getting shot by a weapon that ignores both.

That's why Space Marines don't excel at any one thing. No matter what they're doing at the time, they're paying for "dead weight" that they're not using. That's the cost of their flexibility.

None of those things single-handedly account for the cost alone. Some of them might not even be worth a full point on their own. But they do add up when you have ALL of them.

Just like that HWT has to pay for that lascannon, even if he's somehow managed to get stuck in melee. What makes the HWT efficient at putting that lascannon on the table is that it does literally nothing else, so as long as it's sitting in the back doing its job, it has zero dead weight.

I don't think this is addressing the argument. Yes, obviously if you have two models that are identical except that one is BS3+ with an S4 gun and the other is BS5+ with an S3 gun, then the one with worse shooting should cost less, assuming that you have enough granularity in your point system to represent that difference. Obviously if you have... except that one is T4 3+ and the other is T3 5+, then the less durable one should cost less. And so on. From this we conclude that Space Marines should cost at least 5 points. But what you can't get from this is that they should cost exactly 3.25 times as much as a Guardsman. Like, if Guardsmen cost 6 points instead of 4 points you could make exactly this argument about how the relative prices make perfect sense, but we're talking about a 50% increase in price! The difference there has absolutely massive implications for game balance, and it's just invisible to the kind of argument you're making here. This is just useless as anything other than gesturing at a range from, say, 8 to 20 points that a Marine could plausibly cost in a world of 4-point Guardsmen.

You need a way to think a lot more precisely about what Marines are going to be worth relative to Guardsmen. And that's why I'm not really trying to argue that I can determine from the rules and the math precisely what Marines are worth relative to Guardsmen -- I think you can get an estimate, and I think we have reason to think that Guardsmen are really efficient, but I'm not saying "therefore obviously Guardsmen are too cheap at 4 points". What I want to get across is really just two things. First, Guardsmen are actually really efficient at a bunch of things that lots of people would expect Marines to be better for. You talk about Marines being better in CC, but, again, that's ignoring that the Guardsmen get 3 times as many attacks and have 3 times as many wounds for their cost (though it's true that Marines fare better in CC relative to shooting if it's a prolonged combat and their bolt pistols come in handy). Second, the new rules are a massive buff to hordes. You'll note that I've been giving Marines every advantage in trying to analyze them -- I didn't talk about how each kind of model fares against plasma guns. Nobody's surprised that plasma is specialized for killing Marines. You say that Marines are paying for T4 3+, and I agree. What I'm pointing out is that, where paying lots extra for that used to be a good deal against bolters and heavy bolters, now it's not. Now bolters and heavy bolters are actually more efficiently used against Marines than against Guardsmen.

Now, maybe this doesn't mean that hordes are OP. Maybe you think that they used to be so underpowered that these massive buffs just make them even. I don't really care to fight about that, and it's awfully hard to adjudicate short of seeing how the meta shakes out. Like I've said, my worry about the meta is that it's not really possible to add anti-horde elements to a list anymore. Almost anything you add to help you kill Guardsmen, while it will help you kill Guardsmen, will work even better against Marines. And so my worry is that there will be very little use for heavy infantry of any kind, with the meta being basically light infantry and big monsters, which unlike MEQs actually do tend to be more resistant to anti-horde guns than Guardsmen are.

Dionysodorus wrote:
Actually, here's an idea:

I've said before that I think the real worry here is that there's basically just no gun you can take which actually specializes your unit or army towards killing hordes, given their point costs. The things that you might think are good for this are actually better at killing Marines, for cost. Certainly relative to past editions hordes are now hugely more durable against things like small arms and heavy bolters, while Marines are now actually more vulnerable to the usual anti-horde heavy weapons like heavy bolters. I said earlier that it's hard to see how to make an anti-horde weapon without special rules, but I was wrong.

So here's what I want: a gun with positive AP.

S3 AP+1 is a genuinely anti-horde profile. It's relatively efficient against T3 and relatively efficient against bad saves (except that it doesn't care about the difference between a 3+ and a 2+). S2 AP+1 would be even more specialized as far as infantry are concerned, but given how many shots such a gun would need it probably ends up being weirdly effective against T8 2+ where it's functionally S4 AP-.

Wyvern. It doesn't have positive AP, but it's 3 times more effective against guardsmen than marines.

Mortars too, I think. We have a lot of weapons very efficient at killing GEQ but not very good at all vs. MEQ

 vipoid wrote:
Going back to the idea of anti-horde weapons for a moment, one point I'd like to make is that I think such weapons should be exclusively anti-horde.

I am firmly of the belief that there is no need for such a weapon.

Not only that, but I'm also of the belief that now that the game is more favorable to infantry, we should do nothing to discourage the taking of infantry.

All this "Hordes are too good" stuff appears to be knee-jerk mathammer based, and mostly unplayed by the community. The rules have been out for only two weeks. It seems nuts that people are already asking for a new weapon here.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Wyvern. It doesn't have positive AP, but it's 3 times more effective against guardsmen than marines.

Mortars too, I think. We have a lot of weapons very efficient at killing GEQ but not very good at all vs. MEQ

I've said this several times, but this is absolutely not true relative to the cost of the targets. Like, yes, you will kill at least as many Guardsmen with some weapon as you will Marines. They're easier to wound and they have a worse save. But S4 AP- attacks will kill more points of Marines than points of Guardsmen.

Again, it's not that therefore Guardsmen are overpowered. But this is a huge change for the game. It used to be the case that small arms and anti-horde heavy weapons like the heavy bolter were significantly more efficient against Guardsmen than against Marines. The change is clearly a massive buff to Guardsmen. Possibly it's an appropriate one, though again I think it's worrying that there's really no way you can actually tailor a list to take on hordes without accidentally tailoring even more strongly to take on marines.

Dionysodorus wrote:

I've said this several times, but this is absolutely not true relative to the cost of the targets. Like, yes, you will kill at least as many Guardsmen with some weapon as you will Marines. They're easier to wound and they have a worse save. But S4 AP- attacks will kill more points of Marines than points of Guardsmen..

Basically the game needs more S2 weaponry?

 Insectum7 wrote:

I am firmly of the belief that there is no need for such a weapon.

I agree. What I'm saying though is that I'd want such a weapon to only be good against hordes (and to be taken in place of stuff like plasmaguns or lascannons). So if you want to tailor against hordes you can, but it will cost you in other areas.

As opposed to just making every blast and template weapon much better against infantry, without any actual sacrifice.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Not only that, but I'm also of the belief that now that the game is more favorable to infantry, we should do nothing to discourage the taking of infantry.

Agreed entirely. Infantry have been neglected for far too long.

But what are tactical marines, if not semi-elite hordes? Thats why they are so unfluffy in how they play.

 Talamare wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

I've said this several times, but this is absolutely not true relative to the cost of the targets. Like, yes, you will kill at least as many Guardsmen with some weapon as you will Marines. They're easier to wound and they have a worse save. But S4 AP- attacks will kill more points of Marines than points of Guardsmen..

Basically the game needs more S2 weaponry?

Yeah, S2 is a little more efficient against Guardsmen than Marines, though it's not like it's a huge difference. For example, it still doesn't kill Conscripts more efficiently than it does Marines. But as I said, my main worry with S2 weaponry is that you need so many shots to have something that can do respectable damage to a Guardsmen squad -- you need twice as many S2 hits to do the same damage as you would with S4 hits -- that you risk producing a weirdly efficient anti-tank gun. For example, a hurricane bolter can put out 12 S4 shots at close range. You might design a comparable S2 weapon to put out 30 shots -- that's 25% better against T3 and 17% worse against T4. But then it's better against T5 and up because of the way the wound chart works. The S2 gun is 2.5 times better against T8 than the S4 gun -- it's almost as good as a Lascannon against T8 3+. MaybeT8 is rare enough that it's not worth worrying about, but it's sort of a bizarre result.

There are weapons that do more shots against large units (like Demolisher cannons) but most of them have Ap of at least -3 for some reason.

This isn't a complex problem, hordes should just simply not be immune to morale. They've already built in an anti-horde mechanic, the problem is they've negated it completely where it matters.

Space Marines in squads of 10 are more at risk of running like cowards off the battlefield than Guard. That is a weird result.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sonic Keyboard wrote:
There are weapons that do more shots against large units (like Demolisher cannons) but most of them have Ap of at least -3 for some reason.

Well you need Ap-2 to get around guard saves.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


1150 conscripts, 22CC's, and 6 Commissars.

They could hypothetically deal 40 wounds on average a turn to the thing, if it were actually possible to fit 1150 conscripts within 12" of it. It is, unfortunately, entirely impossible to do that.

I've found that conscripts are basically harmless. They just can't get within 12" of an enemy that doesn't want to be within 12".

in a 2ft by 4 ft deployment zone you have 1152 sq. in. you could get 22 CC 6 Commissars 1124 conscripts, not including impassable terrain.

you could do 80 wounds a turn to MEQ

or 161 MEQ in rapid fire range.

161 marines costs 2,093 points base.

Well, only if all those Conscripts are within range. Which is just a silly assumption. You know, a blast template could kill all those Conscripts in previous editions if you stacked them on top of each other like a tower of cannonfodder.

 Galas wrote:
But what are tactical marines, if not semi-elite hordes? Thats why they are so unfluffy in how they play.

Step right up and buy some Primaris!

But more seriously, they've rareley ever been anything else. Ive played 60+ man marine armies since 3rd. The way marines function like the fluff is requiring to be deployed effectively in order to bring their advantages to bear. Marines in rhinos outmaneuvering conscript-level troops is how to do it. Or in this edition, getting your marines in cover and defending against the horde works too. Have you worked out how many shots it takes for conscripts to kill marines? You need like 15 guys to kill one marine, bare bones.

And dont forget, the seminal piece of 40k artwork, the cover of rogue trader, is a picture of a dwindling pile of marine bodies.

But those where normal humans, corrupt policemen of a supresive regimen, not the Gods of War and Angels of Death that Space Marines are today.

But Is obvious that if GW wants to survive, they can't make their most selled kit a 40points for model unit.

Thats why, besides the fluff point, I love Primaris. At last, Space Marines that rules-wise (at least slightly better) and model wise are like the fluff!

But I don't want to make this thread a "Space Marines are Gods, look at all this books!" vs "No! They are IMperial propaganda, look at all those other books where they die like flyes!"

 Galas wrote:
But those where normal humans, corrupt policemen of a supresive regimen, not the Gods of War and Angels of Death that Space Marines are today.

But Is obvious that if GW wants to survive, they can't make their most selled kit a 40points for model unit.

Thats why, besides the fluff point, I love Primaris. At last, Space Marines that rules-wise (at least slightly better) and model wise are like the fluff!

But I don't want to make this thread a "Space Marines are Gods, look at all this books!" vs "No! They are IMperial propaganda, look at all those other books where they die like flyes!"

Oh totally, i get it. I'll take my grimdark with an extra helping of heroic futility, and not everyone is into that. But as ive said in the previous few editions, you can get the more heroic space marine with Sternguard, and more relevant to the "conscript threat", they bring a better range, more attacks in cc and AP -2.

It's as easy to loose a squad of 30 orks as before. But they are at least somewhat faster, hit harder and aren't as annoying to move.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
But what are tactical marines, if not semi-elite hordes? Thats why they are so unfluffy in how they play.

Step right up and buy some Primaris!

But more seriously, they've rareley ever been anything else. Ive played 60+ man marine armies since 3rd. The way marines function like the fluff is requiring to be deployed effectively in order to bring their advantages to bear. Marines in rhinos outmaneuvering conscript-level troops is how to do it. Or in this edition, getting your marines in cover and defending against the horde works too. Have you worked out how many shots it takes for conscripts to kill marines? You need like 15 guys to kill one marine, bare bones.

And dont forget, the seminal piece of 40k artwork, the cover of rogue trader, is a picture of a dwindling pile of marine bodies.

Primaris are surprisingly bad for being the Big New Thing. They actually magnify the problem being discussed here: yet more points for even less firepower. And with multiwound weapons being cheap as chips and amazingly prevalent, their survivability strategy is actually awful.


However, conscripts killing marines isn't the issue. Its that they prevent the approach of enemies, protecting the stuff that actually does the killing.

The other side of it is due to the way-too-effective morale immunity delivered by the commissar, it combines with their absurd squad size to make conscripts behave defensively as the most effective unit in the game. Again, their offensive ability doesn't matter, it''s that they block melee and meltagun access to the things that do have offensive power, and they do so by behaving in the most unfluffy fashion possible, by being immobile bricks that indifferently endure tons of casualties each round. If they were capped at a reasonable unit size (~20), it wouldn't be an issue, or if they were too green to care that a commissar is killing one guy for every 10+ that die, they wouldn't be a problem. In short, conscripts don't behave at all like conscripts.

On a 10 man infantry squad, the commissar bonus is nice, but not overpowering. To even trigger it, they have to lose 3 or more of the 10 models in the unit (as they use the commissar's LD8) Within a round or two, you can easily get to the point where the unit will die. On a 50 man squad, it is simply ridiculous.

With tyranids, their morale immunity largely can't hide (the prime can, but it's much harder- they don't fit in ruins quite as well, and don't have any tanks to form an improvised box to hide inside), and the tyranids don't have the cheap and long range and effective and no-LOS shooting to dump on the heads of any armies that have to walk up to the wall of flesh and impotently beat on it for a while (and the unit sizes are significantly smaller at 30 rather than 50, with a worse save to boot).

With orks, their 'immunity' actually degrades, even with a warboss blocking the really big morale checks. So those big footslogger units are going to become less and less 'immune' as they cross the field. Sure a weirdboy can try to 'Jump' the unit closer, but that can be pretty risky.
Its also worth noting that the punisher is more effective against orks than it is against conscripts. S5 wounds t3 and t4 the same, and orks have a worse save.

Im totally fine with "conscripts" behaving like chem-stupored, hypno-indoctrined, commissar-induced-fear-of-god, walls of meat for the grinder "shields" for the Emperor's holy war machines.

That is SO IG.

Percentage points killed as a measure of a weapon or units efficiency is ultimately a meaningless statistic. Expected number of GEQ/MEQ/TEQ killed or wounds dealt to a particular target is far more meaningful on the tabletop. You fight with your whole army, not one unit in isolation. If that means dedicating more points that an opponent's unit's worth of firepower to kill it or achieve an objective, then so be it. A win is a win, no matter how "inefficiently" you achieve it.

Yes, large blobs of infantry are powerful and have ways of negating their chief weakness: morale casualties. This does not mean they do not have other weaknesses. They cannot benefit from cover unless the terrain piece is suitably massive, and terrain will similarly slow down or otherwise reduce the effectiveness of large infantry blobs.

And furthermore, we are not talking about 20-strong mobs of CSM or other more elite units here. We are talking about mobs of Ork Boyz, Gaunts, and Conscripts. Every basic infantry gun in the game is capable of killing these models with massed fire, regardless of any "point efficiency". And once a blob has been reduced in size, its effectiveness on the tabletop is greatly reduced.

In short, horde armies are not OP. They may appear so on paper due to mistaken analysis and theorycrafting, but there are clear counters available in every army in terms of weapons and tactics a player can use on the tabletop.

Man this thread is all over the place. I think the simple issue boils down to that Conscripts are under-priced and are very good with and without support. You can bubble wrap much more important models without Orders, without a Commissar. They did their job if that's the role you took them in. Conscripts are a multi-role unit, they're insanely flexible and fit into any Imperium list which already has too many options. That's another discussion but honestly if you couldn't cross Faction within the umbrella of Imperium, this would be LESS of an issue.

Conscripts are going to be a very powerful unit in the competitive meta, full stop. Marine Gunlines will use them, IG will use them a ton. Most people aren't going to spam them to the max, some will though, but they're going to be very prevalent. I agree that there are no good solutions to them, the way certain guns were changed makes Infantry super powerful and I believe that was intended. GW just has a history of not accounting for spam, again that's another topic.

Pure Conscripts probably won't be the apocalypse they're imagined to be, but a combined IG army with a lot of Conscripts backed with suitable HWs will be extremely powerful. A ton of Lascannons camping the back board edge, LoS blocked in some situations, will get through the Tanks that Conscripts can't hurt. Conscripts are then amazing at killing Infantry and you get double-duty out of your Company Commanders, even the Commissars can pull double-duty with their Leadership bubble. Slap the anti-Sniper Character in and call it a day.

Any small change to Conscripts would bring them in line, there are a lot of Infantry spam lists going around for Orks and 'Nids but they all have plenty of counter-play. Conscripts are a point too cheap and they benefit from Orders, get rid of one of those and it'll be fine. Until then I hope Conscript Spam, in varying amounts, DOES become a thing so GW can take notice and adjust it in...a year I guess.

To be honest I think they have just screwed up the numbers.

You can say its meaningless but ultimately damage/point figures don't lie. They are why you try to shoot anti-vehicle guns into vehicles/MC and why you shoot anti infantry guns into infantry. You kill more stuff with what you have on the table and as a result you go on to win the game.

People are saying things like "oh well marines kill hordes".
Well - they don't. The damage output per point is very poor - far weaker than what that horde will do to basic marines.

At the end of the day things like lascannons are very efficient against vehicles. Plasma is very efficient against 2 wound or expensive elite infantry. I can't see anything that is pushing 30-50% points return vs cheap infantry. Mass flamers, mass heavy bolters, mass guns which were previously small blast were meant to qualify and they don't.

Which is why the meta is going to be towards hordes which carry amongst their number sufficient heavy guns to take out vehicles and more elite infantry (not that they do too badly against such infantry anyway).

This isn't just mathhammer either. We are seeing it across games of 8th. Killing cheap infantry should not be this difficult.