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I'm sure that this has been discussed to some extent already, sorry if this is a stale topic but I would just like to hear some thoughts on what we can expect to start seeing on the table in 5th. Well by now most know that troops will be the only scoring unit and vehicles, while being made more survivable have gotten a bit shut down in the firepower department. Also with the whole kill point system can we expect to see a pattern emerge in the FOC that wasn't the normal "balanced" list in 4th? I've seen in the army list section 2-3 troop selection in a list be considered balanced now that may go up to 3-4 or 4-5 to get more troops on the board while I definitely see heavy tanks being removed from people's lists.

Eldar is an army that's power I see taking a big hit. They have a lot of good elite units that may not see the table as much as dire avengers. I could be wrong it just seems that the FOC chart abuse of 2 compuslary troops and that's it, has swung into an extreme by making the troops the only scoring unit? If the abuse is the reason for the move of troops being the only scoring unit why not just bump up the compuslary requirement to 3? Will we still see armies fielding 3 elite choices?

Some armies it will effect greatly, others not so much.

I field orks and already take a horde of slugga boyz, so it really won't change my composition too much. Needless to say, I'm not too heartbroken about the changes to vehicles.

Apostolos wrote:I'm sure that this has been discussed to some extent already, sorry if this is a stale topic but I would just like to hear some thoughts on what we can expect to start seeing on the table in 5th. Well by now most know that troops will be the only scoring unit and vehicles, while being made more survivable have gotten a bit shut down in the firepower department. Also with the whole kill point system can we expect to see a pattern emerge in the FOC that wasn't the normal "balanced" list in 4th? I've seen in the army list section 2-3 troop selection in a list be considered balanced now that may go up to 3-4 or 4-5 to get more troops on the board while I definitely see heavy tanks being removed from people's lists.

Eldar is an army that's power I see taking a big hit. They have a lot of good elite units that may not see the table as much as dire avengers. I could be wrong it just seems that the FOC chart abuse of 2 compuslary troops and that's it, has swung into an extreme by making the troops the only scoring unit? If the abuse is the reason for the move of troops being the only scoring unit why not just bump up the compuslary requirement to 3? Will we still see armies fielding 3 elite choices?

To answer that last question, probably. Depending on the mission, obviously, I see alot of the scoring units being held back and protected. Elites/heavies/fast attack will still be required, because a) they often have more survivability than troops choices (terminators, scorpions, tanks, etc) and/or b) are just more killy than troops choices.

With far fewer scoring units, the need to protect your own and the need to eliminate your opponents both increase greatly. I think you'll see just as many elites/heavies/FA being used, because even if they can't hold an objective, they can sure as hell deny it through awesomeness. I also think you'll see alot more "special skills" used - infiltrate to a small degree, but Deep Strike will certainly come into its own. Holding back your guardians behind the aspect/ghost warriors screen are you? Well eat termie, PEFboy!!

One place I think may see a drop in usage are HQ choices. Even if you can still take them, I don't see command squads being used much, and I think we'll see a drop in superfluous secondary HQ choices. Why give your master a command squad when a tactical squad is scoring, and the same troopers with slightly different weapons options? Why pay for that 140 point extra commander when you can field another scoring unit instead?

Just my two cents...

The Eldar Avatar becomes mandatory in every army, to turn all those (scoring) Guardians fearless, and force killing them off completely. But he'll be a shy Avatar, skulking behind some LoS-blocking terrain.

Apostolos wrote:can we expect to see a pattern emerge in the FOC that wasn't the normal "balanced" list in 4th?

Eldar is an army that's power I see taking a big hit.

If the abuse is the reason for the move of troops being the only scoring unit why not just bump up the compuslary requirement to 3?

Will we still see armies fielding 3 elite choices?

In 4th, if armies were fielding min 2 Troops and max 3 Heavy / Elite, then they weren't "balanced". A "balanced" army would be something more like 3-5 Troops, 1-2 Elite, 1-2 Fast, 1-2 Heavy, with no more than a 60%-40% split between HtH and shooting in either direction. 5th Edition focus on Troops does a lot to "encourage" such structurally-balanced armies.

I agree Eldar will take a big hit, from a Fluff perspective. As the first of the "new style" Codices, the Eldar Codex is something of a hybrid 4th/5th design. Current Eldar designs leverage Elites and Heavies to a great extent, similar to other 4th min-max designs. Troops-heavy Eldar is extremely limited, but wildly varied, and will look rather unusual a counter-Fluff Guardian Horde, Ghost Warrior, Wild Rider, and/or Pathfinder force. If it were a true 5th Edition design, more the Aspects in Elites would have moved to Troops (similar to Cult Marines), with Guardian Support moved into secondary Troops (similar to Lesser Daemons). This would free the Elites to hold other than standard Craftworld forces: Harlequins, Wraithguard (10 = Troops), and Rangers (10 = Troops). I think Eldar will be OK in 5th Edition, but their armies are going to look kind of wierd.

3+ Troops doesn't address the core problem of encouraging Troops to have an actual Tactical role. If you're still fielding unFluffy 4 or 5 min-max 6-man Las-Plas teams, 3+ Troops doesn't change anything. But if you're Imperial Guard, and not using Grenadier Doctrine, having to take a extra 200-300 pts Platoon has a hugely disproportionate impact, particularly if games go back to the book-recommended 1500 pts. Similarly, limiting Scoring to Non-Vehicle Troops dramatically changes the game structure, particularly when Troops are scoring to the last man, and only give up KPs when the entire FOC slot is wiped out. Those are major game-changers, and much more balanced when you look at IG vs SM.

I think we'll still see armies fielding 3 Elites or 3 Fast or 3 Heavies. But those armies that do that will choose to do so very carefully. The days of spamming max non-Troops for min-Troops are over.

Whether an army is balanced or not in 4th has no bearing on how many troops choices it takes.

This response is based on some assumptions, the main one that the rumors surrounding 5th are true, and also that it will take people some time to adjust to the new system.

I consider the optimal army changes to be almost completely stood on their heads! I'll go through some of the major codices:

ELDAR
Some codices are completley dead IMO, particularly Eldar. The entire codex is filled with mediocre units, their main strengths were the staying power of the tanks, and that is gone, all the Eldar troop choices are very sad, and poor in close combat. Running these in greater numbers is a recipe for failure. Furthermore Eldar in general use to be a fast army, with everyone running now they dont even have that advantage. I don't expect to see any competative builds here anymore.

IMPERIAL GUARD
Once again, totally dead, in a world where your own troops block each others LOS, and ALL units can fleet this army is just a big CC magnet, get a good assault unit in and continue to consolidate until the army is gone. The LOS blocking makes the gunline castle unviable, the tanks can no longer move and shoot in response to mobile enemy armies, the massive CC vulnerability is increased with infantry all running now and even the troop transport Chimeras cant move and fire all their guns because of the ST4 defensive weapon rule. The infantry army is worse, the mech army is worse, the CC vulnerability is worse. I wouldn't advise anyone to play IG, no competative builds here either.

CHAOS
The best armies in 5th will probably be those with solid troop choices, meaning able to fill a variety of battlefield roles and surviveable in CC and from shooting. Of all the troop choices in the game the ones who shine the most are probably plain old chaos marines, still customizable into myriad combinations with the chaos marks and variable squad sizes and options and champions with transports, I think this will be the new best overall unit in the game! Sadly, because of the absence of daemons and allied rules for the inexplicable new demon codex and the removal of customizable generals. Despite this fact Chaos armies will probably not appear with the frequnecy they should. The army is still filled with some MAJOR stinkers, that will never see the field, like absurdly random Possesed, Unalligned Daemons, and all the chaos vehicles particularly Chaos Dreadnoughts, Chaos Land Raiders, and the confusingly silly but cool looking defiler...?

TAU
Probably a wash here, mobile vehicles getting a hit probably balances out with suit jumping over screens of junk again. I expect obnoxcious games of hide and seek with suit armies being the new preference over TAU mech lists, opponents of which will chuckle at now and advocates of it will sell their tanks for more suits. Running suits that also boost in the assault phase could be pretty fast. Curious also, are marker lights that reduce cover saves on vehicles combined with the AP1 effects of the rail gun could make this army possibly the best antitank army in the game. Sadly balanaced by the fact that many players will probably play less tanks now anyway...

TYRANIDS
Looks like Godzilla 4 ever... Anyone else sick of seeing 8 TMCs? Now they can run! YAY. I expect this codex will become a real winner as no tank was really a match for a TMC and now they can't even back away and shoot. I expect this will become the dominant troop army with 6 min size units of hidey scoring troops that fleet should round it out nicely!

NECRONS
Necrons dont really play by the rules. I have always thought of them as having their own rulebook essentially. As with the Chaos Marines they have some of the best troops in the game and I expect they do well in the new version, particularly with the absurdity of the teleporting living metal monstrosity that the monolith represents. Here's to hoping the necrons get completley redefined and soon. But probably not, they'll be fine.

ORKS
Well they have OK troops and a custom playbook like necrons that modifies the vehicle rules. So Im glad to say I think they will be a benchmark style army, reasonably good in most situations. Some concern exists about warbike nobs and an army that hides IC HQ quality characters in other slots on the force org chart.

DAEMONS
What? An army of stuff that can't shoot with a HUGE silly tankbeast? That can't charge when it comes in with a really narrow structure of units? I don't know why anyone would even play these in either rule set (4th or 5th) outside of nostalgia... ALways beyond me why they didn't do allied rules or rules for the named traitor legions in there....

So winners: Orks, Tyranids Chaos and Necrons

I suppose it is a good thing to see all the old power builds with a stake through the heart! Oh wait, except Godzilla.... and Necrons and.... Why did they do this rewrite again? Maybe the rumors are incomplete, I guess we will see. I wonder what the codex releases will be like? Who knows.

For what it's worth I think my "pet" Chaos army is about to come into its own.

2x Flying Demon Princes

6x 10 man chaos marine squads in Rhinoes

1x Defiler maxed out for close combat (5 base close combat attacks).

Everything moves at top speed for the opponent/objective (including the defiler) and tears stuff up. This army already showed promise but in 5th ed. I have 60 scoring MEQs who have to be wiped out completely to not score and 35 point transports that no longer cause entanglement. I really do think that this army is going to be great.

I don't think anybody would disagree with that Chaos Marines are going to be a powerhouse.

Chaos Marines have always been a powerhouse.

I was impressed by Augustus's summary.

While quantity has its own quality, there are problems with fielding large numbers of low price troops.