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The bigger issue with the maths is that there is only one unit of guardsmen fighting.

32*3=96 attacks. 48 hits. 24 wounds. 20 dead orks.
If they can charge they can also shoot.
So 60 shots, 30 hits, 10 wounds, 8.333 dead orks.
Straken can issue just about any order which should comfortably kill the nob. Some deviation for overwatch etc, but still.

Then again if the situation is reversed a 30 shoota boyz squad would expect to shoot one squad of 10 guardsmen to death and then do around 26-27 wounds to guardsmen in assault, so if you were lucky (and could perfectly balance your attacks) you could kill both remaining squads along with straken and the priest. (This is assuming you are Red Sunz and so not getting in-combat buffs, its even better if you are say goffs or bad moonz.)

But then Orks are top tier troops, like kabalites, fire warriors and guardsmen.

The TL/DR though is that a 4 point model should not be able to shoot 4 times and then punch at S4 3 times even if does require buffing characters.

Also, if we're spending 2cps/ gaming the example using stratagems, then the Catachans spend their 2cps merging into one blob. Guardsman charge in, kill 21 boys. And at least 8 would be dead from long-range frfsrf. 16 if they got caught in RF range.

the_scotsman wrote:

ccs wrote:
Guard infantry squads are awesome (and always have been) because whatever the edition, for the pts, you can get a helluva lot more shots at the enemy. End of the day it's about making your opponent roll as many saves as possible, as often as possible.
Guard are also awesome because they're cheap enough that you can also afford to bring a good selection of heavier options in addition to that hoard of infantry.

They really haven't been. I'm sorry, it is definitely a pet peeve of mine when people decide "thing that's strong now has ALWAYS BEEN TOO STRONG" because in many cases (like this case) it really isn't. Guard in previous editions were flimsier (due to basic weapons having AP5 and the old wounding system making S5 wound them on 2s), less offensively powerful (fewer shots from FRFSRF in 7th and 6th and in 5th you had to not move to even double tap) and costed more.

You get this a lot about Dark Eldar as well, who have averaged about as well as Orks throughout the editions. One tiny flare of high-tieredness in 5th and that's...about it until now.

I never said they were too strong.

I saw this and just imagined somewhere some guardsman doing this with his lasgun to keep his squad entertained between battles.

https://www.facebook.com/Distractify/videos/753444278146397/

Are Guardsmen in general considered powerful? Or could you run some infantry and Leman Russes (without Catachan) and have fun in some home games without steamrolling friends?

The game can be more balanced it just requires a complete rules rewrite from ground up to make the game a activation system and not a 1 player does everything first then the other player does all their things after.

I've played many games like this and it does feel fair.x-wing 2.0 is a great example as I've fought players who have more powerful shios but I've still won based on skill . I've also fought players with a lot less points and I've lost because I was out skilled.

Well guys, I think this "G-guardsmen s-should be trash, r-right?" meme needs to die in 30 minutes from right fokkin now.

Guardsmen ARE awesome. They might be lacking in body, but the more than make up for it in spirit. And as a wise man once said, a plasma bolt melts the weeniest man and the gene-enhanced demigod all the same way...

 Tiberius501 wrote:
Are Guardsmen in general considered powerful? Or could you run some infantry and Leman Russes (without Catachan) and have fun in some home games without steamrolling friends?

There is definitely space for casual guard lists. I play a Meta that is supremely casual for the most part and we do have guard players who just play what they've collected through the years.

Amazingly I've never encountered the magical unicorn everyone always brings up who is a player who collects an army for aesthetics then magically ends up with a tournament competitive army. I've had players who claimed to be that, who just happened to ebay their collection every half edition for an army that's winning tournaments they just happen to love the fluff of, but never seen it occur honestly.

There's a wide gulf between 150 unupgraded guardsmen standing between you and a wall of ignores LOS arty using Catachan or Cadian tactics and a regular collection of random stuff with upgrades, oddball units and load outs that aren't currently optimal.

Funny thing is guardsmen just need someone to yell at them to outrun a plane.

Catachans are so jucied even Justin Gatlin is impressed

Catachan jungle tanks are so bad ass they kill more enemies than famed dedicated tank units.

Lasguns are sound operated but only respond to officers in case the milita get above themselfs.

Cadians spent so long standing guard they can't move and do things at the same time.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:


Exterminatus is extremely rare, the Imperium takes worlds with boots on the ground the majority of the time. Guard are only weak infantry wise, their armour is the most devastating in the galaxy because they are cheap to make and very effective, Eldar have high tech weapons but nothing that outstrips the Imperium, The Imperium has weapons that can match the Eldars, they just aren't as efficient. I mean pit an Imperial Titan against an Eldar Titan, the Eldar one may dance about like its a disco but it can just as easily be brought down. And infantry is is mostly the same, all infantry are pretty much a match for one another barring a few cases and then when it comes to elites and heavies ect all armies have ways to combat each. To say that guard are weak because humans are st3 for instance is short-sighted. As for marines, a chapter is the equivalent of an army, marines in the lore are the greatest warriors in the galaxy, on the table top they are incredibly under powered. Guard fight without marines most of the time, its rare for a guard army to ever see a space marine. I mean the Imperial guard are the reason the Imperium dominates the galaxy, they don't do it out of sheer luck.

My point was that the military strength of the Imperium is not as grand on the scale of the tabletop as it is on a galactic or even planetary scale. I wasn't referring to specific equipment or technology, just that if the scale is small enough (and 2000 points are an incredibly small scale), there is not much difference between the factions in terms of strength. So in a perfect world, where all armies are more or less balanced, that would be an accurate depiction of the lore as well.

Ice_can wrote:
Funny thing is guardsmen just need someone to yell at them to outrun a plane.

Catachans are so jucied even Justin Gatlin is impressed

Catachan jungle tanks are so bad ass they kill more enemies than famed dedicated tank units.

Lasguns are sound operated but only respond to officers in case the milita get above themselfs.

Cadians spent so long standing guard they can't move and do things at the same time.

^This is the reason I created the thread. Not the overall effectiveness of guard in tournaments, the over-the-top way their orders mechanic gets transferred to the game that makes them feel crazy strong, fast, accurate, etc when compared to other stuff in the game.

It's like my pet peeve that Eldar vehicles are faster than Dark Eldar vehicles, when DE vehicles are literally using the same engines but they've stripped off all the armor and safety features and built the whole thing just to maximise speed.

Guardsmen can move faster not just than the basic troops from the "Fast" factions like Dark Eldar and Harlequins, but literally faster than units that can FLY, using the Move Move Move order.

The problem is, with orders being automatic (unlike Psychic powers and Acts of Faith, it's not harder to get off better orders) and unlimited in the sense that you can use them repeatedly (unlike Canticles of the Omnissiah, where one is clearly better than the other but you can only use the best one once) they must be designed such that there's a compelling reason to use EVERY order over every other order.

The "run faster, don't shoot" order has to be sufficiently powerful to give you a reason to use it over the "shoot better" order, so you get guardsmen running faster than jetbikes. The "Fight in close combat" order has to compete with the "run away from close combat, turn around, and shoot at full effectiveness" order, so you get Khorne Beguardzmerkers.

If I were going to fix it, I'd make every order have its own restrictions, and I'd add power to an order if it ends up too weak.

"Take Aim!" - unit must not have moved in the movement phase
"Bring it down!" - unit must fire all its guns at the same target
"First rank, fire! Second rank, Fire!" - to be issued this order, every model in the unit must be touching the base of at least one other model in the unit, and the unit must contain a Sergeant to direct the firing.
"Move, Move, Move!" - Same as current order, however I would remove the "instead of shooting' restriction allowing Tallarn and Assault weapons to still work, and make it only +D6" extra move instead of 6+D6"
"Get Back in the Fight!" - officer must shoot a member of the squad
"Fix Bayonets!" - Rather than the current pile in and fight, I'd have this be "the unit immediately charges, if they succeed, they fight. In the ensuing Fight phase, they do not count as having charged".

I just had to throw this out there:

Tyel wrote:
The TL/DR though is that a 4 point model should not be able to shoot 4 times and then punch at S4 3 times even if does require buffing characters.

Imperial Guard players: It is OK for my 4 point infantry to make 7attacks in a turn. Meanwhile 13 point elite infantry get to make 2 attacks. The difference? 1 strength, 1 WS/BS.

 Marmatag wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The TL/DR though is that a 4 point model should not be able to shoot 4 times and then punch at S4 3 times even if does require buffing characters.

Imperial Guard players: It is OK for my 4 point infantry to make 7attacks in a turn. Meanwhile 13 point elite infantry get to make 2 attacks. The difference? 1 strength, 1 WS/BS.

... nobody is saying marines are OK for 13 points.

And the difference is 1 strength, 1 toughness, 2 better armor save, extra equipment (krak grenades), 1 WS, 1 BS, better leadership.... each of which makes it worth more than a guardsmen.

3 guardsmen rapid firing = ~0.325 dead marines
3 guardsmen using FRFSRF = ~0.65 dead marines.
1 marine rapid firing bolter = ~0.57 dead guardsmen.

So in that tiny vacuum, it's not like guardsmen are better than marines without buffs, and with buffs, they are a bit better than an unbuffed marine at shooting. One of their biggest virtues is that you throw more dice, so they're less random... roll enough dice and you approach the expected distribution of results. With marines you have fewer rolls, so you're more likely to have very "swingy" results where you just have unexpectedly bad or good results.

 Marmatag wrote:

Imperial Guard players: It is OK for my 4 point infantry to make 7attacks in a turn. Meanwhile 13 point elite infantry get to make 2 attacks. The difference? 1 strength, 1 WS/BS.

Space Marine players: You shouldn't be anything but CPs for my army. Why do you even get to do anything?!

Tyel wrote:
The TL/DR though is that a 4 point model should not be able to shoot 4 times

9 4 point models in a squad(remember: Sergeants don't get Lasguns kids!), buffed with an Order that prevents them from getting any other Order(unless the Officer has Laurels of Command) get to shoot their S3 weapon(it literally only affects Lasguns) 4 times if the enemy is in Rapid Fire range to begin with.

This means that the squad has:
-No Plasma Gun
-No Heavy Weapons Team with Mortar

So realistically, it's 6 models "shooting 4 times if they have a Lasgun and the enemy is within 12"".

and then punch at S4 3 times even if does require buffing characters.

They get to "punch at S4" if they're Catachan. The two additional attacks mandate not just one but two characters within 6" of the unit.

That one's an easy fix, "wholly within".

 Marmatag wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The TL/DR though is that a 4 point model should not be able to shoot 4 times and then punch at S4 3 times even if does require buffing characters.

Imperial Guard players: It is OK for my 4 point infantry to make 7attacks in a turn. Meanwhile 13 point elite infantry get to make 2 attacks. The difference? 1 strength, 1 WS/BS.

Well, and all those aforementioned supporting characters...and lots of tabletop positioning

The catachan doctrines could use some toning down. SM's could use some point reductions. But dont make it out like naked 4pt mods are doing that on their own (just like those Tank Commanders arent gettin 4d3 plasma cannon sponson shots like you keep posting), we're talking about a specific build going off in the most favorable possible way here.

For what you're describing to work, it needs at least 110pts worth of character models within 6" of a specifically Catachan infantry squad to function and have an enemy within RF/reliable Charge distance, not just something every Guard army can do whenever it wants wherever it wantd, and such units usually end up more like 10ppm after wargear and characters, assuming at least 3 squads to spread the characters over (and its hard to manageably spread them over more than that with a 6" bubble, and you need an additional officer after the at least the first two if they're all gonna frfsrf)

 Marmatag wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The TL/DR though is that a 4 point model should not be able to shoot 4 times and then punch at S4 3 times even if does require buffing characters.

Imperial Guard players: It is OK for my 4 point infantry to make 7attacks in a turn. Meanwhile 13 point elite infantry get to make 2 attacks. The difference? 1 strength, 1 WS/BS.

3 Attacks, 3+ save. +1 Ld. T4, some sort of Chapter Tactics. Possibly their own Character buffs..

Lasguns are the best gun in the game, hands down. Doubly so if they get orders.

Guardsman are a 5ppm model, which becomes 6.5ppm if you want to buff them with orders (2x10 infantry squads, 1 commander), which is still a very reasonable price for the amount of work they do. They're as good as Firewarriors, and Firewarriors are 7ppm (even more if you take the Fireblade leader guys).

Nevermind that if you go...you get:
...Mordian
Overwatching on 5+'s, just like Tau
Volley Fire (1cp) - roll a 6 on any of the four dice per model you use to shoot with lasguns, and you get to pick up ALL four dice for that model, and make another shooting round.
...Vostroyan
+6" range (tying with Tau)
...Cadian
RR1's/RR all misses
+1 to hit if shooting at a unit wounded previously this round
...Armageddon
Double shots at 18"
...Tallarn
Move and shoot

They're basically Firewarriors, 4ppm instead of 7ppm.
The real issue is that their PPM is so low, their damage/durability outputs are so high, and on top of all that - they get amazing stratagems and regiment bonuses.

Back them up with the best vehicles in the game, and soup on top of it, and well...

 Horst wrote:
... nobody is saying marines are OK for 13 points.

And the difference is 1 strength, 1 toughness, 2 better armor save, extra equipment (krak grenades), 1 WS, 1 BS, better leadership.... each of which makes it worth more than a guardsmen.

3 guardsmen rapid firing = ~0.325 dead marines
3 guardsmen using FRFSRF = ~0.65 dead marines.
1 marine rapid firing bolter = ~0.57 dead guardsmen.

So in that tiny vacuum, it's not like guardsmen are better than marines without buffs, and with buffs, they are a bit better than an unbuffed marine at shooting. One of their biggest virtues is that you throw more dice, so they're less random... roll enough dice and you approach the expected distribution of results. With marines you have fewer rolls, so you're more likely to have very "swingy" results where you just have unexpectedly bad or good results.

This is a bit of an odd way of calculating it.

3 guardsmen shooting marines.
6*1/2*1/3*1/3=1/3rd Marine = 4.333 points.
1 Marine shooting marines.
2*2/3*1/2*1/3=2/9 Marine=2.888 points.
Guard=50% better.

3 guardsmen shooting guardsmen.
6*1/2*1/2*2/3=1 guardsmen=4 points.
1 marine shooting guardsmen.
2*2/3*2/3*2/3=0.59 guardsmen. 2.37 points.
Guard=68% better.

From the above, Guard shooting Marines=4.333, marines shooting guard equals 2.37, so Guard=82.8% (!!!) better.

When you consider you get more than 3 guardsmen for each marine it gets even worse.
You can factor in the laspistol making a guard squad slightly worse - but by nowhere near making up this massive difference.

In terms of available buffs/synergy - the guard player can boost a unit's shooting by 100% (sorry, 94%~ cos of the pistol). He can boost their melee ability to four and half times as (!!!) effective versus T4 targets. (3 S4 attacks kill 0.25 marines vs just 0.0555 with 1 S3 attack).
A marine player can take Guilliman - which has a big impact if you are wounding on 5s or 6s but thats about it. A more typical reroll 1s to hit and wound aura is a 36% buff. This 36% buff doesn't make marines as good as normal non-buffed guardsmen.

A friend and I had this conversation already

IS need to be 5-6 ppm, they have no business being 4. That's a pretty criminal undercosting.

In addition, Company Commanders (and anyone with Voice of Command or whatever it is) needs to go up considerably as well. The Guardsman himself is not intimidating, but for the price of 17.5 points per order, you can make them into factories that pop out stratagem-like effects all game long for nothing.

These guys probably need to be like 60, since they have the actual orders.

5-point Guardsman = 150 points for 3 IS
60 point Commander = 120 points for 2 Commanders.

Loyal 32 now cost 270.

80 points doesn't seem like much, but it MAY get people looking in-faction instead of out of faction immediately.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
A friend and I had this conversation already

IS need to be 5-6 ppm, they have no business being 4. That's a pretty criminal undercosting.

In addition, Company Commanders (and anyone with Voice of Command or whatever it is) needs to go up considerably as well. The Guardsman himself is not intimidating, but for the price of 17.5 points per order, you can make them into factories that pop out stratagem-like effects all game long for nothing.

These guys probably need to be like 60, since they have the actual orders.

5-point Guardsman = 150 points for 3 IS
60 point Commander = 120 points for 2 Commanders.

Loyal 32 now cost 270.

80 points doesn't seem like much, but it MAY get people looking in-faction instead of out of faction immediately.

How do you suggest we point Scions and Tempestor Primes?

Tyel wrote:

 Horst wrote:
... nobody is saying marines are OK for 13 points.

And the difference is 1 strength, 1 toughness, 2 better armor save, extra equipment (krak grenades), 1 WS, 1 BS, better leadership.... each of which makes it worth more than a guardsmen.

3 guardsmen rapid firing = ~0.325 dead marines
3 guardsmen using FRFSRF = ~0.65 dead marines.
1 marine rapid firing bolter = ~0.57 dead guardsmen.

So in that tiny vacuum, it's not like guardsmen are better than marines without buffs, and with buffs, they are a bit better than an unbuffed marine at shooting. One of their biggest virtues is that you throw more dice, so they're less random... roll enough dice and you approach the expected distribution of results. With marines you have fewer rolls, so you're more likely to have very "swingy" results where you just have unexpectedly bad or good results.

This is a bit of an odd way of calculating it.

3 guardsmen shooting marines.
6*1/2*1/3*1/3=1/3rd Marine = 4.333 points.
1 Marine shooting marines.
2*2/3*1/2*1/3=2/9 Marine=2.888 points.
Guard=50% better.

3 guardsmen shooting guardsmen.
6*1/2*1/2*2/3=1 guardsmen=4 points.
1 marine shooting guardsmen.
2*2/3*2/3*2/3=0.59 guardsmen. 2.37 points.
Guard=68% better.

From the above, Guard shooting Marines=4.333, marines shooting guard equals 2.37, so Guard=82.8% (!!!) better.

When you consider you get more than 3 guardsmen for each marine it gets even worse.
You can factor in the laspistol making a guard squad slightly worse - but by nowhere near making up this massive difference.

In terms of available buffs/synergy - the guard player can boost a unit's shooting by 100% (sorry, 94%~ cos of the pistol). He can boost their melee ability to four and half times as (!!!) effective versus T4 targets. (3 S4 attacks kill 0.25 marines vs just 0.0555 with 1 S3 attack).
A marine player can take Guilliman - which has a big impact if you are wounding on 5s or 6s but thats about it. A more typical reroll 1s to hit and wound aura is a 36% buff. This 36% buff doesn't make marines as good as normal non-buffed guardsmen.

So just to be clear, you're allowed to assume a certain Reigmental tactic and two buffing characters (one of whom is unique) within 6", but you can't assume Guilliman?

Purifying Tempest wrote:
IS need to be 5-6 ppm, they have no business being 4. That's a pretty criminal undercosting.

In addition, Company Commanders (and anyone with Voice of Command or whatever it is) needs to go up considerably as well. The Guardsman himself is not intimidating, but for the price of 17.5 points per order, you can make them into factories that pop out stratagem-like effects all game long for nothing.

These guys probably need to be like 60, since they have the actual orders.

5-point Guardsman = 150 points for 3 IS
60 point Commander = 120 points for 2 Commanders.

Loyal 32 now cost 270.

80 points doesn't seem like much, but it MAY get people looking in-faction instead of out of faction immediately.

I can see IS being 5ppm, but 6 would be a criminal overcosting when you compare guardsmen to kabalites, fire warriors, and skitarii rangers.

Orders are guard auras. A company commander being 60 points is way overcosted considering that it is roughly the cost of a primaris lieutenant. A primaris lieutenant can re-roll all wounds for ANY unit within 6" of him and has MUCH better stats than a CC. Sure the CC has a better variety of buffs and can change them at will but he can only effect 2 units at a time within 6" of him, and they have to be GUARD infantry, which aren't exactly scary, even in their buffed up state. I can see MAYBE putting a CC up to 35 or 40 points base but no more than that.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
A friend and I had this conversation already

IS need to be 5-6 ppm, they have no business being 4. That's a pretty criminal undercosting.

In addition, Company Commanders (and anyone with Voice of Command or whatever it is) needs to go up considerably as well. The Guardsman himself is not intimidating, but for the price of 17.5 points per order, you can make them into factories that pop out stratagem-like effects all game long for nothing.

These guys probably need to be like 60, since they have the actual orders.

5-point Guardsman = 150 points for 3 IS
60 point Commander = 120 points for 2 Commanders.

Loyal 32 now cost 270.

80 points doesn't seem like much, but it MAY get people looking in-faction instead of out of faction immediately.

Last time Company Commanders were 60pts it was when that included a command squad of Veterans that could be given quad special weapons.

At 60pts all youll get is people just taking Primaris psykers for HQ's instead and dropping the commanders entirely for CP batteries, and just relying on Elites officers for Orders where needed otherwise.

Orders are not guard auras. It's AM gimmick that makes units that are otherwise ignorable into something less ignorable.

The problem is that guardsmen are no longer ignorable.

w1zard wrote:

Purifying Tempest wrote:
IS need to be 5-6 ppm, they have no business being 4. That's a pretty criminal undercosting.

In addition, Company Commanders (and anyone with Voice of Command or whatever it is) needs to go up considerably as well. The Guardsman himself is not intimidating, but for the price of 17.5 points per order, you can make them into factories that pop out stratagem-like effects all game long for nothing.

These guys probably need to be like 60, since they have the actual orders.

5-point Guardsman = 150 points for 3 IS
60 point Commander = 120 points for 2 Commanders.

Loyal 32 now cost 270.

80 points doesn't seem like much, but it MAY get people looking in-faction instead of out of faction immediately.

I can see IS being 5ppm, but 6 would be a criminal overcosting when you compare guardsmen to kabalites, fire warriors, and skitarii rangers.

Orders are guard auras. A company commander being 60 points is way overcosted considering that it is roughly the cost of a primaris lieutenant. A primaris lieutenant can re-roll all wounds for ANY unit within 6" of him and has MUCH better stats than a CC. Sure the CC has a better variety of buffs and can change them at will but he can only effect 2 units at a time within 6" of him, and they have to be GUARD infantry, which aren't exactly scary, even in their buffed up state. I can see MAYBE putting a CC up to 35 or 40 points base but no more than that.

I can't believe I'm about to say this in a way.
However I agree with the guard player, you've totally jumped the shark with 60 points per comander. The idea is balance not GTFO points.
Re-costing the Guard codex around 5PPM infantry squads and 40 PPM company comander would solve alot of it's issues.

Leaving Eldar soup(burn Yannari) fix DOOM (non craftworld) and we're a heck of a lot closer to an actually balanceable game.
Oh and Castellen being it's true 680ish points.

Bar GK but they buster busted.

Saying again:

Guard aren't going to be fixed with points. They're going to be fixed with a refocus of the Codex.

Conscripts going to 6+ saves and losing <Regiment>(no Orders!), Orders being entirely reworked to be an armywide 'series' of Auras ala the Doctrina Imperatives that Skitarii had and the Blessings of the Omnissiah that Cult had.

Why would conscripts go to 6+ though? They have exactly the same equipment that regular Guardsmen have. Well, at least the type of conscripts we see in game do. Conscripts are just soldiers fresh from boot camp, or given less training than standard Guardsmen. To get a 6+ save you would need different models to represent the sort of "frateris militia" style men that a 6+ save would represent.

 Trickstick wrote:
Why would conscripts go to 6+ though? They have exactly the same equipment that regular Guardsmen have. Well, at least the type of conscripts we see in game do. Conscripts are just soldiers fresh from boot camp, or given less training than standard Guardsmen. To get a 6+ save you would need different models to represent the sort of "frateris militia" style men that a 6+ save would represent.

For a reason why it could be different let me just use hockey gear as an example. You can buy the same goalie pads off the shelves that they use in college/pros and it looks identical, But on the inside its completely different. They actually have several different grades of protection as you continually progress through the ranks. The higher the level you play at the more expensive the actual gear becomes and the more protection it offers. Everything from the way its stitched to the actual materials are different.

I'm assuming the Imperium would do something similar. The guns/ armor handed out to people conscripted into service with essentially no training and used for nothing but wave attacks and human shields is probably of a lower quality then those regiments raised and trained to a normal standard. Why not mass produce conscript armor with cheaper materials

"Why not mass produce conscript armor with cheaper materials"

Well because it is more efficient to mass produce more of the standard line trooper armour. Also those conscripted troops may get enough experience and training to count as regular troops, and you don't want to have to keep track and rearmour them. It is easier administratively and more efficient to give line troops line troops quality armour.

Conscripts aren't being taken already, why would you nerf them. You may as well delete them, as no one would take them anyway.