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 Insectum7 wrote:
Edit: do conscripts have pistols? If not tacticals have a convenient extra boost in close quarters.

Guard units don't get pistols aside from sergeants and characters.

 Melissia wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Edit: do conscripts have pistols? If not tacticals have a convenient extra boost in close quarters.

Guard units don't get pistols aside from sergeants and characters.

I thought so, thanks!

Since the reintroduction of sidearms and auto-inclusion of grenades on marines, theyre one of those things that players overlook when comparing units. But for basic SMs, those things are key.

Super important now with the pistol rules.

My Baneblades are 22 points per wound, Marines are 18.

Baneblades are worse than tac squads.

Discuss.

^Right?

Tac squads have been miserable since, well, forever because of their firepower/pt. Defenses mean nothing if you can't hurt the opponent in a meaningful way. The Eldar kill all your good units, ignore worthless tacs, kill them last. I guess you can make nids kill the tacs first, but whatever.

I find the offensive output of Tactical Squads with heavy+special+sargeant weapon just good enough to matter n 8th. They are afterall a "good enough" generalistic troop.

I know that personally I don't want to change the flexibility of my Tactical Marines for other troops. Yeah, they aren't Tau Firewarriors for 8p. But they don't need to be.

They are also terrible at cc for their cost. That's what really kills them in the final analysis. Can't shoot, can't fight.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
My Baneblades are 22 points per wound, Marines are 18.

Baneblades are worse than tac squads.

Discuss.

I admit, I laughed.

This absurdity is why my comparison of units' defensive abilities took in to consideration more than wounds per point. And why I honestly think Tacticals, while they aren't the super-best defensive units, are actually pretty good for a troops choice.

Well, they aren't. The more you take, your chances of winning go down quickly.

Whatever balancing needs to happen, the current force org charts are going to make that job much tougher. If a unit is even a little north of the balance point, the current force orgs allow it to be spammed in bulk. Look at what happened to scion command squads, people took a unit a little north of balance and spammed the gak out of it. Same thing with stormravens and the rest of the space marine flying circus, someone might sell me on them being undercost but I'm not there yet, I think the real problem is them getting spammed.

The problem with spam is twofold, first you are brining only units that are north of the balance point. The second is that by having only one target profile you punish forces that prepared for multiple target profiles. For instance if you have an all flyer lists, your opponent's small arms and anti-infantry weapons are going to perform at a fraction of their intended effect.

So step 1 before any other changes are considered, we need to stop the spam, maybe an army wide cap of taking a non-troop/dedicated transport unit two/three times. Also move the Ultimate command and flyer wing FoCs into narrative only. that should stop the worst of it, and increase variation.

It seems that everyone has their own thing that they want tacticals to be better at, but that thing is different for each person.

Some people want them to be more durable. Some people want them to be shootier. Some people want them to be choppier. Any one of them would gladly sacrifice the other two to get their preferred stat (well, probably, some people want it all).

But the reason they do none of those things excellently is because they do all of those things decently. Sure, they're not spongier than the spongiest units in the game, they're not shootier than the shootiest units in the game, and they're not choppier than the choppiest units in the game. But they're not supposed to be any of those things, and certainly not all of them at once.

 Grimgold wrote:
So step 1 before any other changes are considered, we need to stop the spam, maybe an army wide cap of taking a non-troop/dedicated transport unit two/three times.

So wait, my BA 1st and 10th terminator force is to be banned according to you? Wow, I didn't realize it was so overpowered. I'm liking it evne more now

I'm currently planning on running 3 Vindicators in my Crimson Fists force, is that spammy or overpowered?

 Melissia wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
So step 1 before any other changes are considered, we need to stop the spam, maybe an army wide cap of taking a non-troop/dedicated transport unit two/three times.

So wait, my BA 1st and 10th terminator force is to be banned according to you? Wow, I didn't realize it was so overpowered. I'm liking it evne more now

My suggestion was for competitive/tournament games ie matched play, I don't care what the feth you play in your friends basement. Spam is a huge problem in the tournament circuit, and if you make some terrible list unplayable to improve the quality of the game, that's a sacrifice I think we should all be willing to make. I'm in the same boat, I play deathwing, which is more fluffy and established in the lore than ba first company, and I'm perfectly happy to just play that in narrative where I can deep strike the whole thing and play it like it's meant to be played.

 Grimgold wrote:
if you make some terrible list unplayable to improve the quality of the game

Yeah you haven't actually proven it would make the game better.

You just hate "spam" lists without really actually looking at the deeper problems. There's nothing inherently wrong about "spam". The problem isn't people taking multiples of the same unit, which they so happen to like and want to use. The problem is unbalanced units.

If a unit is broken when you take a lot of them, it's more likely than not also broken when you take just one of them.

 Grimgold wrote:
deathwing, which is more fluffy and established in the lore than ba first company

No, it's not. Blood Angels are a 1st founding chapter with a great deal of respect from the greater Imperium, and have plenty of resources and power, and there's no reason they wouldn't have a few squads of terminators ready to deploy in time of need. But keep telling yourself that your army's more fluffy, if it helps you feel better.

 Galas wrote:
I find the offensive output of Tactical Squads with heavy+special+sargeant weapon just good enough to matter n 8th. They are afterall a "good enough" generalistic troop.

I know that personally I don't want to change the flexibility of my Tactical Marines for other troops. Yeah, they aren't Tau Firewarriors for 8p. But they don't need to be.

It's BETTER in 8th, but not by much. I'd rather just use my Scouts and Bikers still for a reason. Flexibility isn't good if the unit isn't good at actually being flexible.

Scouts are good-- to be honest, they've always been good-- but they have a very limited role that doesn't benefit every army list, and even with camo cloaks (which makes them more expensive than tacticals) they're at best as durable as tacticals are.

Martel732 wrote:
Tac squads have been miserable since, well, forever because of their firepower/pt. Defenses mean nothing if you can't hurt the opponent in a meaningful way. The Eldar kill all your good units, ignore worthless tacs, kill them last. I guess you can make nids kill the tacs first, but whatever.

The flipside is that you have to kill lots of marines to get rid of the specials and heavies. Take specialists and the opponent has something to focus on, take a bunch of Tacs and they've got no particularly good target. The Tacs and their more protected support units then focus their efforts on taking out whatever will push the battle in their favor, and the flexible Tacs spar it out.

"Tacs suck" is often the cry of people who rely on fat, juicy targets, imo. For me, they're the backbone.

And furthermore, because combiweapons can fire every turn, basically means tacticals now have an additional special weapon in their squad, which gives them the additional firepower a lot of people want out of tacs.

One of my opponents lieks to play a demi company, he's been taking tac squads as follows:

10 Tacs, Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Power Axe, Missile Launcher 180

He then takes 2 of those and combat squads them, pops the flamer squads in a Rhino and the Missiles on home table objectives.

That's 432 points for a vehicle, 2 Missile Launchers and 4 Flamers. The flamers do a lot of work when they disembark. Honestly they seem fine.

 Melissia wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
if you make some terrible list unplayable to improve the quality of the game

Yeah you haven't actually proven it would make the game better.

You just hate "spam" lists without really actually looking at the deeper problems. There's nothing inherently wrong about "spam". The problem isn't people taking multiples of the same unit, which they so happen to like and want to use. The problem is unbalanced units.

If a unit is broken when you take a lot of them, it's more likely than not also broken when you take just one of them.

 Grimgold wrote:
deathwing, which is more fluffy and established in the lore than ba first company

No, it's not. Blood Angels are a 1st founding chapter with a great deal of respect from the greater Imperium, and have plenty of resources and power, and there's no reason they wouldn't have a few squads of terminators ready to deploy in time of need. But keep telling yourself that your army's more fluffy, if it helps you feel better.

On the amusing side, tell me more about your berserking depressed space vampires, who had to be saved from extinction by chaos and papa smurf. On the balance side, to be clear you are arguing lists with five flyers and guilliman are kosher, and that you liked scion command squad spam, and that you think taurox prime spam is balanced and fun to play against. On FLG they were talking about how they think flyer spam or knight spam is likely to win the BAO, and are in the early phases of deciding what to do about it. I'm not sure why you can't seem to understand the problem, whether it's self interest that stops you from understanding, or a gap in your knowledge of the subject. So I'll try to explain it since I assumed a basic level of knowledge that is obviously not present:

Spam is bad because it's boring, fighting 5 or 500 of the same unit makes for boring battles, since it's the same tactics over and over again.
Spam is bad because it's unbalanced, a minor imbalance can be magnified greatly by taking the imbalanced unit over and over again.
Spam hurts list diversity, having a wide range target profiles means there are several correct answers on how to do your composition, having one target profile running amok, means there will only be a few right answers in terms of comp. So spam begets spam.
Spam is ez mode, bringing a ton of the same unit reduces the complexity of running that army.

There are two modes of play for 40k narrative and matched, every suggestion I've given is for Matched. Matched goals are to 1.) Be balanced, 2.) be fun, 3.) reward player skill. Spam is none of those so no matter how fluffy it is, it does not have a place in matched play. QED.

Ultimately, a recosting of things would probably be best. But that is out of our hands. I'm more interested in fixes TOs and players can implement now. The best way to do that, without trying to rework and restrict FOCs and unit selection is through incentivization. The best way to do that, as others have pointed out, is through mission design.

Eternal War sucks. All it does is push people to spam killy stuff. Why bother with objectives when you can just make sure your opponent can't hold them.

Maelstrom missions were a good idea, but poorly implemented. Too random and it doesn't work great for counter play since you always draw objectives at the start of your turn. But scoring points each turn is great and must be used.

ITC does this better, but their format doesn't really disincentivize spam lists. Also, their scenarios can be a bit complicated for new players, with a choice of primary objectives, secondary objectives and tertiary objectives.
ITC missions : https://novaopen.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/WopiFrame.aspx?guestaccesstoken=numqdmghJq7vVQ9x3uYbgsU5M4zsCkqniJGdDH5ftSE%3d&docid=0b790d7fdb5004a42ae1980f6f0e2db7e&action=view


Here are my suggestions :

1. Being tabled doesn't result in a loss, only scenario objectives count
So they can table you by turn 3? Doesn't matter if you spend those 3 turns gathering enough points to make their comeback impossible. Some games already do this and it allows for 300 Spartans-like levels of epicness where your troops give their lives to secure an objective long enough to afford your side victory. It could effectively kill lists that ignore objectives, and at the very least it will make them less appealing.

2. Have different scenarios where different unit types are worth more
This works best for tournaments, but can work well in regular matched play with random scenario selection. Basically, if you have a scenario where you score a point each turn you hold an objective, you can have a rule stating that a specific type of units (Troops, FA, HS, Elites) score an extra point when they hold an objective. In tournaments, the unit type can change per scenario, encouraging players to take more variety.
Alternatively, you could give those unit types objective secured.

Example mission :
Set up normally, placing 6 objectives
Randomly select a battlefield role (TROOP, ELITE, FAST ATTACK, HEAVY SUPPORT)
Score one point per objective you control at the end of your turn. For each objective you control with a (UNIT TYPE X), score an additional point.

 Grimgold wrote:


Spam is bad because it's boring, fighting 5 or 500 of the same unit makes for boring battles, since it's the same tactics over and over again.

And playing an army list against a totally random assortment of units is somehow more engaging? Even if there's no cohesive elements, synergy, or attention to making it fluffy?

Pretty easy to make an argument when you use sweeping generalizations with loose definitions. Does spam have a minimum unique unit count before its not considered spam? How many repetitions of a unit constitutes spam? Does playing against different armies that spam different things constitute facing the same army over and over again simply because they spam?

Spam is bad because it's unbalanced, a minor imbalance can be magnified greatly by taking the imbalanced unit over and over again.

Correction, units are bad because they're unbalanced. People spamming them for competitive reasons is simply a side effect of the actual issue. Address that and the spam will greatly diminish.

Spam hurts list diversity, having a wide range target profiles means there are several correct answers on how to do your composition, having one target profile running amok, means there will only be a few right answers in terms of comp. So spam begets spam.

Which brings us back to point 1. It seems you're assuming everyone is spamming the exact same thing, across every army. We both know this isn't true, so assuming you're facing off against different armies who spam different things (and might have spammed multiple different unit types within each army), you'll still need to bring a broad range of answers. Oddly enough, even if you were facing against a totally random, non-spam force, you'd have to do the same thing, or you could build a spammy army because its something you enjoy doing. Its almost as if the solution here is better balance so that people who want to bring multiples of the same unit can do so without people whining about how they're playing the wrong way.

Spam is ez mode, bringing a ton of the same unit reduces the complexity of running that army.

Its sooooo much easier to randomly throw down one of every unit in your codex, right? This is a terrific argument right here. "My army is better because its harder to run." Go home everyone, we have a winner.

There are two modes of play for 40k narrative and matched, every suggestion I've given is for Matched. Matched goals are to 1.) Be balanced, 2.) be fun, 3.) reward player skill. Spam is none of those so no matter how fluffy it is, it does not have a place in matched play. QED.

Emperor forbid someone plays a fluffy army in matched play. We couldn't possibly have that now, could we? Could you imagine the chaos?

Spam isn't bad. Balance is the issue. Let players build the armies they want to within the rules without people acting all high and mighty with how amazing they are because they don't spam and that people who spam are bad people and play the wrong way.

 Grimgold wrote:
On the balance side, to be clear you are arguing lists with five flyers and guilliman are kosher

Yes, actually, I am.

If the flying unit is by itself overpowered, then it should be fixed so it isn't overpowered, which will have an even bigger impact to lists taht take five of them and thus remove the big advantage you think lists with five flyers have.

Drager wrote:
One of my opponents lieks to play a demi company, he's been taking tac squads as follows:

10 Tacs, Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Power Axe, Missile Launcher 180

He then takes 2 of those and combat squads them, pops the flamer squads in a Rhino and the Missiles on home table objectives.

That's 432 points for a vehicle, 2 Missile Launchers and 4 Flamers. The flamers do a lot of work when they disembark. Honestly they seem fine.

I think you meant something like 252 points; I can't mention the exact cost of the Rhino, but it's between 70 and 80 depending on wargear.

But at the end of the day, you're paying 250 points effectively for 1 troop squad. For 50 points less, you could be bringing a quad Lascannon predator. If you're Dark Angels it'll have a 4++ shield, and reroll hits. If you're Ultras it will have rerolls to hits, and wounds. Your Rhino advancing up the board will have none of this.

I appreciate the idea of trying to make a "jack of all trades" squad, but in general what I would do for competitive games is commit or get out, as in, go with a theme for your army, and go hard. TAC squads simply don't fit a theme other than spam bodies and pray you have stuff on the table at the end of the game. It doesn't work in 8th; TAC squads get flat out erased if anything shoots at them.

 Marmatag wrote:

Drager wrote:
One of my opponents lieks to play a demi company, he's been taking tac squads as follows:

10 Tacs, Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Power Axe, Missile Launcher 180

He then takes 2 of those and combat squads them, pops the flamer squads in a Rhino and the Missiles on home table objectives.

That's 432 points for a vehicle, 2 Missile Launchers and 4 Flamers. The flamers do a lot of work when they disembark. Honestly they seem fine.

I think you meant something like 252 points; I can't mention the exact cost of the Rhino, but it's between 70 and 80 depending on wargear.

But at the end of the day, you're paying 250 points effectively for 1 troop squad. For 50 points less, you could be bringing a quad Lascannon predator. If you're Dark Angels it'll have a 4++ shield, and reroll hits. If you're Ultras it will have rerolls to hits, and wounds. Your Rhino advancing up the board will have none of this.

I appreciate the idea of trying to make a "jack of all trades" squad, but in general what I would do for competitive games is commit or get out, as in, go with a theme for your army, and go hard. TAC squads simply don't fit a theme other than spam bodies and pray you have stuff on the table at the end of the game. It doesn't work in 8th; TAC squads get flat out erased if anything shoots at them.

He was saying it was 432 points for 2 such squads and a Rhino.

But let's use your 252 example. A Rhino has the durability of a Predator -1 wound, and the squad has 10 more wounds. So for 50 points cheaper you get a predator. Yay? I mean it's not like you don't get 10 bodies for those 50 points. Or the special weapons they have. Or their close combat ability (which is leagues above the Predator). And you get the Predator's speed and durability for the rhino.

All you're literally missing out on is 4 lascannons - your comparison is frankly ridiculous. Twice the durability, for only 25% more points.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:


Spam is bad because it's boring, fighting 5 or 500 of the same unit makes for boring battles, since it's the same tactics over and over again.

And playing an army list against a totally random assortment of units is somehow more engaging? Even if there's no cohesive elements, synergy, or attention to making it fluffy?

Pretty easy to make an argument when you use sweeping generalizations with loose definitions. Does spam have a minimum unique unit count before its not considered spam? How many repetitions of a unit constitutes spam? Does playing against different armies that spam different things constitute facing the same army over and over again simply because they spam?

If I have to vary my tactics to fight different parts of the lists, then yes, absolutely more engaging. Besides you are making a straw man, list diversity doesn't mean a lack of coherence or theme, any more than spam means fluffy.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Spam is bad because it's unbalanced, a minor imbalance can be magnified greatly by taking the imbalanced unit over and over again.

Correction, units are bad because they're unbalanced. People spamming them for competitive reasons is simply a side effect of the actual issue. Address that and the spam will greatly diminish.

Perfect balance is undesirable in a system like 40k, where minor imbalances and/or special rules are used to give units flavor. Beyond undesirable it's unachievable given that you would have to balance over a thousand units against each other. So minor imbalances are to be expected, and major imbalances are to be dealt with. The problem with spam is that ti can take the expected minor imbalances, and turn them into major imbalances. So we can start removing flavor from the game or we can limit people's ability to spam, and spam is bad for all of the reasons I stated.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Spam hurts list diversity, having a wide range target profiles means there are several correct answers on how to do your composition, having one target profile running amok, means there will only be a few right answers in terms of comp. So spam begets spam.

Which brings us back to point 1. It seems you're assuming everyone is spamming the exact same thing, across every army. We both know this isn't true, so assuming you're facing off against different armies who spam different things (and might have spammed multiple different unit types within each army), you'll still need to bring a broad range of answers. Oddly enough, even if you were facing against a totally random, non-spam force, you'd have to do the same thing, or you could build a spammy army because its something you enjoy doing. Its almost as if the solution here is better balance so that people who want to bring multiples of the same unit can do so without people whining about how they're playing the wrong way.

People bringing the same target profile, Like the two vehicle spam lists I mentioned (knights and flyers)? The only one that isn't vehicle spam is battlesuit commander spam, which is the same target profile. Once again the lack of perfect balance is not an excuse for abusive practices, "If the game were balanced my spam list wouldn't be broken, so it's the games fault my list is broken and unfun to play against" is a complete abdication of your responsibility as a player and a member of the community of players. Perfect balance is unachievable/undesirable, instead we just try and get rid of major imbalances, and spam causes many major imbalances without adding anything to the game.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Spam is ez mode, bringing a ton of the same unit reduces the complexity of running that army.

Its sooooo much easier to randomly throw down one of every unit in your codex, right? This is a terrific argument right here. "My army is better because its harder to run." Go home everyone, we have a winner.

Sticks and stones. If I have the same weapons on all of my units, my thought isn't "which weapons do I use against which target". When all of my units have the same defensive profile, I don't wonder which of my identical units should secure and objective and can weather the enemies fire better. Spam is a huge simplification of strategy and tactics, and once again you use a straw man (random units from the codex) to try and defend a point that is indefensible. List diversity requires more skill, no if's and's or but's.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
There are two modes of play for 40k narrative and matched, every suggestion I've given is for Matched. Matched goals are to 1.) Be balanced, 2.) be fun, 3.) reward player skill. Spam is none of those so no matter how fluffy it is, it does not have a place in matched play. QED.

Emperor forbid someone plays a fluffy army in matched play. We couldn't possibly have that now, could we? Could you imagine the chaos?

Matched play has different goals than narrative, fluffy list and battles that tell stories are meant for narrative, where the rules set is relaxed to allow large imbalances for reasons of story. How dare I suggest that if you want to play a fluffy list you do so in the game mode designed for such things, I must be a monster who stops at red lights and puts books back on the shelf where I got them from. Also I don't have to imagine the chaos of spam lists, i can just go check best coast pairings.

 Blacksails wrote:
Spam isn't bad. Balance is the issue. Let players build the armies they want to within the rules without people acting all high and mighty with how amazing they are because they don't spam and that people who spam are bad people and play the wrong way.

I just can't quite grok how there is no connection between spam and imbalance in your mind, it's has to be some pretty stunning mental acrobatics. Spam is a form of imbalance, not exclusively a result. Also unlike the the minor imbalances where a unit is perhaps a few points cheaper than they ought to be to make list building interesting, spam adds nothing to the game. In fact Spam hurts the game significantly, so I'm at a loss to think of why someone would defend spam lists except to defend something they think gives them an advantage to use over others.

Spam is not imbalance. Imbalance is imbalance.

No one is asking for perfect balance either. Just better balance.

I'm defending spam because spam is a perfectly valid and fluffy way to build armies. As a Guard player, its pretty damn hard to avoid spam, if I run 4x infantry squads in Chimeras, supported by Russes and hellhounds. That list is pretty convincingly middle ground in power, but is the kind of list I enjoy running.

If your issue with spam is that you don't like the look of the army across from you, then fine, no one can convince you there. If its a balance issue, then simply fix the core issues of why the units are out of balance.

Simple stuff.

Most armies will like to spam if they want to keep their logistical situation manageable.

Heck, the Guard have to spam to be fluffy. Highlander guard lists look really bizarre and unfluffy to me. "I'm a superheavy tank regiment. So here's my one unit of rough riders, one unit of ratlings, and one unit of sentinels."

 Blacksails wrote:
Spam is not imbalance. Imbalance is imbalance.

No one is asking for perfect balance either. Just better balance.

I'm defending spam because spam is a perfectly valid and fluffy way to build armies. As a Guard player, its pretty damn hard to avoid spam, if I run 4x infantry squads in Chimeras, supported by Russes and hellhounds. That list is pretty convincingly middle ground in power, but is the kind of list I enjoy running.

If your issue with spam is that you don't like the look of the army across from you, then fine, no one can convince you there. If its a balance issue, then simply fix the core issues of why the units are out of balance.

Simple stuff.

It's only spam if the unit is "good".

Otherwise have you ever SEEN an army with one of every unit? It isn't a cohesive looking army at all, and plays stupidly too.