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 jeff white wrote:
Named characters should be banned from competition.

I'm the guy who actively advocates the separation of Imperium and banning of FW, and even I don't think named characters should be banned.

(Just balanced)

Audustum wrote:

 NenkotaMoon wrote:
Yea, matched play wise Keyword army joining is a bad idea.

Depends who you are. My Custodes, Inquisition and I'm betting Sisters of Silence would basically be impossible if we couldn't take units from other Imperium armies.

I think this is an easy fix you break up the imperium into 8 codices and for matched play you rule that all armies must come from a single source. I understand the fluff of combining the imperium, but it is terrible for balance given that most other armies cannot get that kind of flexibility. There are just too many combinations available when you can pick and choose units from a ton of factions.

Adeptus Mechanicus + skitari
IG/AM
Space Marines
Dark Angles
Space Wolves
Blood Angels
Grey Knights
Agents of the Imperium (includes custodies, inquisition, sisters, Sisters of silence, assassins, knights)

Now this will never happen because GW wants to sell those agents models to all the marine players.

What if we had a primary "faction" and every other detachment taken not from that Primary "faction" cost you a CP.

Use the list Breng77 made to split up the imperium into different Primary factions. This would punish soup players but allow people to flavor with allied stuff.

And still I agree plasma and conscripts need looking into in addition to this.

Timeshadow wrote:
What if we had a primary "faction" and every other detachment taken not from that Primary "faction" cost you a CP.

Use the list Breng77 made to split up the imperium into different Primary factions. This would punish soup players but allow people to flavor with allied stuff.

And still I agree plasma and conscripts need looking into in addition to this.

I could see going that non-primary detachments cost their CP bonus in CP so a battalion would cost -3 CP. Another potential solution could be making it so that non-primary faction units can only be taken as part of an auxiliary detachment or a single patrol detachment

Breng77 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 NenkotaMoon wrote:
Yea, matched play wise Keyword army joining is a bad idea.

Depends who you are. My Custodes, Inquisition and I'm betting Sisters of Silence would basically be impossible if we couldn't take units from other Imperium armies.

I think this is an easy fix you break up the imperium into 8 codices and for matched play you rule that all armies must come from a single source. I understand the fluff of combining the imperium, but it is terrible for balance given that most other armies cannot get that kind of flexibility. There are just too many combinations available when you can pick and choose units from a ton of factions.

Adeptus Mechanicus + skitari
IG/AM
Space Marines
Dark Angles
Space Wolves
Blood Angels
Grey Knights
Agents of the Imperium (includes custodies, inquisition, sisters, Sisters of silence, assassins, knights)

Now this will never happen because GW wants to sell those agents models to all the marine players.

I would say
Imperium (Custodes, Inquistion, Sisters of Silence) <-- If this is lacking anything major, they can have an entry for like a Basic Guardsman Infantry Squad.
Sisters of Battle

and then have Assassins and Knights be a unique mechanic that can be brought into any of these 10 Factions

 Talamare wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 NenkotaMoon wrote:
Yea, matched play wise Keyword army joining is a bad idea.

Depends who you are. My Custodes, Inquisition and I'm betting Sisters of Silence would basically be impossible if we couldn't take units from other Imperium armies.

I think this is an easy fix you break up the imperium into 8 codices and for matched play you rule that all armies must come from a single source. I understand the fluff of combining the imperium, but it is terrible for balance given that most other armies cannot get that kind of flexibility. There are just too many combinations available when you can pick and choose units from a ton of factions.

Adeptus Mechanicus + skitari
IG/AM
Space Marines
Dark Angles
Space Wolves
Blood Angels
Grey Knights
Agents of the Imperium (includes custodies, inquisition, sisters, Sisters of silence, assassins, knights)

Now this will never happen because GW wants to sell those agents models to all the marine players.

I would say
Imperium (Custodes, Inquistion, Sisters of Silence)
Sisters of Battle

and then have Assassins and Knights be a unique mechanic that can be brought into any of these 10 Factions

This issue here is that custodies inquisition and sisters of silence don't have many units, same with knights and assassins. I see no reason why we need knights and assassins to be able to be added to the other factions. but if you use the above can only take as an aux detachment you would be able to anyway.

But for imperium as you suggest:
Inquisition has 8 units (most single model units)
sisters of silence have 4 units
Custodes have 3 units


So that would be an army with 15 units, half of which are single model units.

Adding assassins adds 4 units (all single models
adding knights adds 5 "units" (basically all knights are the same unit with different wargear)

adding these gets you to 24 units, again mostly single models

Sisters have 21 units (many single models)

so you would have 45 unit choices, only 15 are multiple model units

Astra Millitarum has 49 (more if you role psykers back in instead of being astra telepathica), 20 are multiple model units

Adeptics Mechanicus would be on the small end, but they still have 10 multiple model units.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
If sisters want to split out later if they get an expanded line, fine, but right now I feel like they lack support


Automatically Appended Next Post:
alternately you could make the Imperium faction have a base

Inquisition
Custodes
Knights
Assassins

with 3 sub factions

1.) Xenos - Add deathwatch
2.) Malleus - Add grey knights
3.) Hereticus - Add Sisters of Silence, and Sisters of battle.

kind of going back to the 4th ed line

If conscripts are the "meta" then you just have to work out a way to beat them. You will start seeing massive ork armies with 150+ orks, banners and warboss with some weirdboys to teleport a squad within 9", congo to the warboss, advance and then charge those conscript units.

6+/5+ with only double shots and then dying in drove on a 2+/3+.

Stop being so nerf happy and figure out a way to beat the current meta instead of relying on GW to do it for you.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
Celestine was a beast in all games. She alone occupied 3 turns of shooting by my fireprisms because she was literally in my fire base wrecking stuff, died, came back and did it again.

For 150pts, she was aces.

Yep. And the funny part is, even if she was 300 points, with no Superia, you could still justify taking her. She is literally that good.

You want to shoot Celestine? I suppose you can, but that 2+/4++ offers pretty solid protection. And, she can heal D3 wounds per turn. Of course, you're only shooting her if the person controlling Celestine is letting you. When I set her up, I deploy her out of LOS of the big nasty stuff, and can rely on my first 24" move to close the distance. I don't let people shoot Celestine. If they do, it's because they're falling back in terror or i've exposed her intentionally.

You want to charge Celestine? You'll eat flamer overwatch, then you'll attack her. But before your next opportunity to attack, I will get 18 attacks in response. So in the span of you getting 1 attack, i've done 18 attacls + d6 flamer hits. Charge me. I'd love nothing more. Catch me in a bad combat? Fly fly fly away.

You want to ignore Celestine? I move 24" a turn. You can't ignore me.

You actually killed Celestine? I'm coming back on a 35/36 chance.

I say this as someone who uses Celestine in basically every game - she is way too good.

How is Celestine getting 18 attacks when charged!?

Rickels wrote:
If conscripts are the "meta" then you just have to work out a way to beat them. You will start seeing massive ork armies with 150+ orks, banners and warboss with some weirdboys to teleport a squad within 9", congo to the warboss, advance and then charge those conscript units.

6+/5+ with only double shots and then dying in drove on a 2+/3+.

Stop being so nerf happy and figure out a way to beat the current meta instead of relying on GW to do it for you.

So your 30 orks are going to kill a ton of conscripts?

Against a squad of 50 conscripts 5 orks die to overwatch, if you congaline back to your buffs (lets say ghaz, and a weirdboy giving them +2 attacks, and the banner) you probably have 15 boyz attacking (5 died, probably 10 not in range once you conga back to your buffs) So you have 3 base attacks +3 from bonuses so 6 attacks each. 90 attacks, kills 33 conscripts, 17 remaining kill 2 more orks. Those guys fall back on their turn, and the rest of that ork squad dies. The issue is that if you trade 30 orks for 30 conscripts you will lose the game.

But yes that is one of the armies that might have a chance against conscripts spam + killy stuff.

Breng77 wrote:

Rickels wrote:
If conscripts are the "meta" then you just have to work out a way to beat them. You will start seeing massive ork armies with 150+ orks, banners and warboss with some weirdboys to teleport a squad within 9", congo to the warboss, advance and then charge those conscript units.

6+/5+ with only double shots and then dying in drove on a 2+/3+.

Stop being so nerf happy and figure out a way to beat the current meta instead of relying on GW to do it for you.

So your 30 orks are going to kill a ton of conscripts?

Against a squad of 50 conscripts 5 orks die to overwatch, if you congaline back to your buffs (lets say ghaz, and a weirdboy giving them +2 attacks, and the banner) you probably have 15 boyz attacking (5 died, probably 10 not in range once you conga back to your buffs) So you have 3 base attacks +3 from bonuses so 6 attacks each. 90 attacks, kills 33 conscripts, 17 remaining kill 2 more orks. Those guys fall back on their turn, and the rest of that ork squad dies. The issue is that if you trade 30 orks for 30 conscripts you will lose the game.

But yes that is one of the armies that might have a chance against conscripts spam + killy stuff.

You are assuming you lose 5 orks in overwatch but you are forgetting that you can stagger units, that first unit that ported in is just the wound soaking damage for the other unit coming at the conscripts. Lock any other conscript unit nearby in the following consolidation and then force orders to be get back in the fight, which halves the effectiveness of the conscript wall.

In your world of mathhammer you are missing the most vital portion of the game we are playing, space. You literally will be so crowded with those conscript spam you are never ever EVER going to get the mythical figure of 200 shots, ever.

I didn't calculate 200 shots, I calculated 100 for overwatch, it might be slightly less depending on how spread out each unit is. There won't be another unit of boyz until the following turn as you can only port one a turn, so unless you are using commandos as a wound soak, and they actually make the charge, and survive overwatch and you assume the boyz make the charge which is not a given.

You in your assumption are missing the fact that I did account for space, and it is still not by any means a given that things fall in your favor.

Say you don't go first, now you are down a number of boyz, maybe a weirdboy if snipers exist. You might fail Da jump, or kill your weirdboys with perils.

Locking additional units with pile in isn't a give or an easy feat if they are deployed well.

The conscript all is literally just there to block you from stuff that is actually killing your models, it isn't the means with which to kill those models, so forcing them to fall back and get back into the fight isn't a big loss.

 Talamare wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
Named characters should be banned from competition.

I'm the guy who actively advocates the separation of Imperium and banning of FW, and even I don't think named characters should be banned.

(Just balanced)

I would agree on the first point for sure - Inquisition and imperials generally shouldn't embrace Girlyman's nuStormtroopers.
Mine won't.
Forgeworld might be a case by case but for competition I would also agree to a blanket ban.
Also banning superheavies.
More than three of the same unit.
But then again I would also like to see the return of player army comp and sportsmanship points contributing toward final scores in tourney play.

As for named character, i am adamant.
Superheroes belong in comic books and special narrative matches.
Gimmicky list/deck building is not what this hobby originally represented.
It was chess for people with imagination and a good deal of discipline.
People change I guess.
And the hobby follows the money.

I would not play against a named character without prior consent and for special reasons.
That is the way things used to be - in fact it was part of the game.
But again everyone wants that rare card in their MtG deck and GW went the way of the wallet.
Spoiled deck builders dropped big money on character models like they did on Magic cards.

I never liked Magic. Or the smell of cat piss and flip flops.

But in previous editions, the Lords could be stronger than the special characters due to wargear customization. Even HeroHammer was a thing in Fantasy. Special named characters weren't the crux of these days but rather your personally named avatar warlord with the bajillion upgrades.

This edition is the closest chess equivalent we've had yet thanks to stratagems allowing for a sense of choice and the careful evaluation of resource expenditure according to what your opponent is likely to do. Past editions effectively played themselves if you were always performing the optimal play.

 jeff white wrote:
Named characters should be banned from competition.

That's as stupid as banning FW or specific units because you don't like them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rickels wrote:
If conscripts are the "meta" then you just have to work out a way to beat them. You will start seeing massive ork armies with 150+ orks, banners and warboss with some weirdboys to teleport a squad within 9", congo to the warboss, advance and then charge those conscript units.

6+/5+ with only double shots and then dying in drove on a 2+/3+.

Stop being so nerf happy and figure out a way to beat the current meta instead of relying on GW to do it for you.

Remember how Eldar and Marine apologists said this exact line about Scatterbikes and Gladius?

I don't really see anything wrong with the Earthshaker Carriage, if we consider it balanced with the codex (which is not necessarily balanced with the overall game). A Basilisk has T6 W11 Sv3+ with an Earthshaker and Heavy Bolter, whereas an Earthshaker Carriage has T7 W7 Sv4+ and 4 crew (which are considered a separate unit though it cannot really be shot at), and it cannot move if that ever becomes important (objectives etc). The Basilisk costs 17 points more (~19%).

Arguably, I think those 17 points are justified as the increased toughness only matters for S3, S6 and S7 weapons. and the Basilisk has a heavy bolter instead of 4 lasguns, 4 more wounds and a better save. I think the problem is that the carriage is better because its cheaper for the same firepower (the Earthshaker) and a Conscript wall prevents from the decrease in durability from being an issue. If conscripts lose in popularity, this might change.

Tyel wrote:
Not really surprising.

IG are this edition's Eldar. Clearly top tier with a bag of great options - its not just Conscripts that are the problem (although they contribute).

They might not be once all the books are released but from now to Christmas I expect them to place well in every tournament and they shall be the army dictating the meta.

You have lived to see Imperial Guard become the WAAC TFG army.

What a time to be alive.

It's just 5th ed redux. Don't let the IG whiners tell you otherwise; they were brutal in 5th to face.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Not really surprising.

IG are this edition's Eldar. Clearly top tier with a bag of great options - its not just Conscripts that are the problem (although they contribute).

They might not be once all the books are released but from now to Christmas I expect them to place well in every tournament and they shall be the army dictating the meta.

You have lived to see Imperial Guard become the WAAC TFG army.

What a time to be alive.

It just means we have gone full circle... again
Considering they were plenty WAAC in 4th & 5th

So far 8th edition is boring... I hope codex will balance it... At least in v7 there were 4 viable armies..

Breng77 wrote:

This issue here is that custodies inquisition and sisters of silence don't have many units, same with knights and assassins. I see no reason why we need knights and assassins to be able to be added to the other factions. but if you use the above can only take as an aux detachment you would be able to anyway.

But for imperium as you suggest:
Inquisition has 8 units (most single model units)
sisters of silence have 4 units
Custodes have 3 units


So that would be an army with 15 units, half of which are single model units.


Sisters have 21 units (many single models)

Sisters of Battle have survived for a very long time without a huge selection of choice, they will be fine.

The Imperium as I suggested would be a little thin, I acknowledge. However, plenty of other factions are arguably fairly thin as well.
Change Daemonhost and Witchseekers to Fast Attack
Change Jokaero to Heavy Support

Give them access to Guardsman Infantry Squads, Valkyrie, Rhino, and maybe Vindicator?

and they would be playable enough. In time they can have more releases to expand or clean up the roster.

 Talamare wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

This issue here is that custodies inquisition and sisters of silence don't have many units, same with knights and assassins. I see no reason why we need knights and assassins to be able to be added to the other factions. but if you use the above can only take as an aux detachment you would be able to anyway.

But for imperium as you suggest:
Inquisition has 8 units (most single model units)
sisters of silence have 4 units
Custodes have 3 units


So that would be an army with 15 units, half of which are single model units.


Sisters have 21 units (many single models)

Sisters of Battle have survived for a very long time without a huge selection of choice, they will be fine.

The Imperium as I suggested would be a little thin, I acknowledge. However, plenty of other factions are arguably fairly thin as well.
Change Daemonhost and Witchseekers to Fast Attack
Change Jokaero to Heavy Support

Give them access to Guardsman Infantry Squads, Valkyrie, Rhino, and maybe Vindicator?

and they would be playable enough. In time they can have more releases to expand or clean up the roster.

Sisters have only had their own "stand alone" codex for ~2 editions, prior to that they had inquisition aspects.

IMO it is easier to just include sisters than give them guardsman (they have acolytes), what is the rationale between sisters needing their own book? That it means GW will expand the line? They might or might not, if the last 2 releases of sisters suggest anything they won't expand much. So why not expand their choices by putting them in with other small imperial factions? You could still run pure sisters, but could include other imperial choices as well. It isn't a matter that they won't survive, it is that there is no reason to have a separate codex for such a small faction, when instead it could include all the small imperial stuff. At that point really only Ad mech is super small from an imperial standpoint.

Eh, I'm suppose at this point I don't have much reason to keep going.

Inquisition/Sisters are such a small part of the Imperium Soup that I really am the one without much cause here.

Uh... no. Sisters have been a "stand alone army" since second edition (and arguably 1st, unless you count "policing the Astartes and killing any who stepped out of line" as not a "stand-alone army" which to be fair is arguable).

Even 3rd edition's C:WH acknowledged them as such, and listed them not only as the primary force behind the codex gameplaywise, but also a force separate from the Inquisition whose primary duties had nothing to do with it; assisting the Inquisition was their side job, one they weren't actually obligated to do, but did so out of having similar goals.

So the solution to beating a top tier army is to buy a whole new HORDE army? No thanks. Thankfully for me, there aren't a lot of IG players in my area. If not, I would just play a different game.

 Melissia wrote:
Uh... no. Sisters have been a "stand alone army" since second edition (and arguably 1st, unless you count "policing the Astartes and killing any who stepped out of line" as not a "stand-alone army" which to be fair is arguable).

Even 3rd edition's C:WH acknowledged them as such, and listed them not only as the primary force behind the codex gameplaywise, but also a force separate from the Inquisition whose primary duties had nothing to do with it; assisting the Inquisition was their side job, one they weren't actually obligated to do, but did so out of having similar goals.

But they did have a codex in which it wasn't all sisters of battle, and that was their most recent print codex. It also being part of a larger book in no way prevents them from being played as an all sisters force, but instead gives them more options without the need for a whole new line. Which I hope will come, but I don't see a whole new line with a ton of new units for sisters in the cards. As I said it seems to me that if you are limiting primary factions the way I suggest is the best to accomplish doing so without making the other small imperial factions just guard lite. Codex imperium with Sisters, Deathwatch, Inquisition, Gk, Custodes, Sisters of silence, knights and assassins would work. As GK are having their own book I suppose you could have sisters be a separate book as well but allow them to "ally" within the imperium faction. My main reasoning was toning down imperial soup of lets all take conscripts to wall off our fire base/ lets cherry pick the best units from half the game.

Breng77 wrote:
But they did have a codex in which it wasn't all sisters of battle, and that was their most recent print codex.

Using Codex: Imperial Agents as a guide for what you consider a good idea doesn't exactly say much good about your taste in books.

It literally added nothing to the army (in fact, it took options AWAY), was decried as the most useless piece of gak book in 7th edition, and generally speaking was considered by anyone who wasn't an Inquisition player to be little more than a useless waste of space, paper, and time-- and even Inquisition players barely even really needed it to begin with.

 Melissia wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
But they did have a codex in which it wasn't all sisters of battle, and that was their most recent print codex.

Using Codex: Imperial Agents as a guide for what you consider a good idea doesn't exactly say much good about your taste in books.

It literally added nothing to the army (in fact, it took options AWAY), was decried as the most useless piece of gak book in 7th edition, and generally speaking was considered by anyone who wasn't an Inquisition player to be little more than a useless waste of space, paper, and time-- and even Inquisition players barely even really needed it to begin with.

And I'm not suggesting taking away options, look at it this way, such a book wouldn't hurt you in any way, but would remove options from other armies if their were limits on what imperial players could take. unless you are taking non-sisters units in your sisters like conscripts...

Breng77 wrote:
And I'm not suggesting taking away options, look at it this way, such a book wouldn't hurt you in any way

Getting nothing and continuing our two-decade long stagnation is, in fact, fething hurtful. And that is the inevitable and frankly only realistic result of haphazardly being stuffed in some half-assed "All The Other Reindeer" amalgamation book. By cramming five or six factions in to a single book, you simply don't have space or time to give any of them the attention they deserve.

Let me ask you this would you prefer the current imperial soup where sisters get a new book with no new units, or a limited imperium where sisters are part of a larger faction but still fully playable as their own army?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
And I'm not suggesting taking away options, look at it this way, such a book wouldn't hurt you in any way

Getting nothing and continuing our two-decade long stagnation is, in fact, fething hurtful.

Which there is no guarantee that you would get anything in a new sisters book. In fact history (as you state) suggests you won't.

Breng77 wrote:
Let me ask you this would you prefer the current imperial soup where sisters get a new book with no new units, or a limited imperium where sisters are part of a larger faction but still fully playable as their own army?

Might as well be asking me "Do you want to eat the horse gak, or cow gak?". Either way it's gak and I don't want it going in my mouth.

But if I had to pick? New book for Sisters, completely separate from any other factions. At least then even if we don't get new units, GW has to write some new fuckin' lore for us.