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So I was caught a bit flat-footed when my opponent wanted a 1500 point game, didnt have anything tuned for it in 5th. But what the hay, it's just a casual game up at the LGS. Much of my army build is sub-optimal and determined by what I happen to have assembled and ready and theme-army oriented.

On a semi-unrelated note, at my LGS all attempts to explain why kill points are bad in 5th have resulted in basically "tough gak IG players, learn how to play lamer, there is no problem, I play SM and know, you suxxor". The intelligence of the explanation has had little to nothing to do with any response to the arguement.

Anyway:

Mine:

412th Dinbao Anti-Tank Regiment (basically, it's a theme army)
24 kill points total

Doctrines:

Veterans
Drop Troops
Iron Discipline
Close Order Drill
Something that fills the 5th slot

HQ1:

Junior Officer: Iron Discipline, Retinue with Missile Launcher.
AT Squad: x3 Lascannons.
AT Squad: x3 Lascannons.

HQ 2:

Junior Officer: Iron Discipline, Retinue with Missile Launcher.
AT Squad: x3 Lascannons.
AT Squad: x3 Lascannons.

T1:

Junior Officer: Iron Discipline, Retinue with Missile Launcher.
Squad: Missile Launcher
Squad: Missile Launcher
Squad: Missile Launcher

T2:

Junior Officer: Iron Discilpline, Retinue with Plasma Gun. Drop Troops.
Squad: Plasma, Drop Troops
Squad: Plasma, Drop Troops
Squad: Plasma, Drop Troops

E1:

Hardened Vets: Sgt, Grunt, x3 Meltas, Drop.

E2:

Hardened Vets: Sgt, Grunt, x3 Meltas, Drop.

E3:

Hardened Vets: Sgt, Grunt, x3 Meltas, Drop.

FA1:

Sentinel: Lascannon. Not outflanking.

FA2:

Sentinel: Lascannon. Not outflanking.

FA3:

Sentinel: Lascannon. Not outflanking.

His: (admittedly a fairly casual army to my estimation)
10 potential kill points

Some HQ character in a crisis suit.

Another squad of 3 suits and 2 shield drones.

5 piranhas in a squadron.

Hammerhead with railgun.

x2 Devilfish with 12 Fire Warriors in each.

x2 squads (assorted sizes) of Fire Warriors.

So yeah. I wasnt feeling particularly thrilled with an annihilation mission but refrained from commenting on it, given the delicious reception my LGS has given to any attempt to claim KP are broken in 5th. I roll to go first, woohoo!

Turn 1, me...

Meh, I'm just going to summarize this.

I blazed away at him the entire game and freely admit that pure crap luck ensured that I failed to kill much early game. He rushed forward with his his drone-carrying Piranhas, troop carrying Devilfish, etc. They gunned down a LOT of grunts with no armor save, despite careful positioning. I tried to drop things in and failed in a spectacular redisplay of bad luck. He went more forward, unloaded assorted dakka dakka which dakka-dakkaed and earned him enough KP to win the game. We didnt realize that at the time. We didnt realize until after my next turn.

My turn, stuff finally dropped in, killed a LOT of his vehicles and squads. End of my turn, I do the math.

Me: "Oh, yeah, you win."

Him: "Uh.. what? No way."

Me: I had to explain the entire concept of "my army is worth 24 kill points, yours is worth 9 kill points". He didnt understand, I had to explain it again. At which point I was subjected to what I've been thinking since 5th edition came out: "WTF, kill points dont make sense!?". Fun times.

We played out the remaining 4 turns (rolling for it all, the game did in fact last another 4 turns). Basically with me trying to table him to win. Oh look. Game ended with me having over 50% of my army on the table. Him having 6 fire warrriors spread across various squads, and an immobile weaponless Devilfish taking up space on the battlefield.

Clearly, 70 men vs 6 men, he wins.





My hope is that when the new Guard codex comes out in May they take the 'Ard Boyz route for kill points. At which point I WILL run cheapo platoons with HQ and 5 max-listed squads. And will especially savor "WTF, I killed 50 men for 0 kill points?!" with my hiding platoon HQs. And if they dare to complain about it, well, that's why I'm going to keep a flick blade folded and on the corner of the board nice and handy. I daresay if they DARE to utter the word "cheese" that'll be more than enough to set it off.

Heh.

Okay, so I'm trying to make a point and overexagerating.

Why not play something other than annihilation? I play IG as well, and have never has a problem with a friendly game where when we rolled for missions we just skip that result.

There...problem solved.

You know, if you'd tabled him, you would have won regardless of erstwhile kill points.

Why not play something other than annihilation?

Because if I were to say something along the lines of "Why not play something other than annihilation?" after having rolled annihilation, I'd have received a particularly hefty chorus of "IG players are whiners, learn to play, it aint that bad - even though I dont play IG, KP are perfectly fair - even though I only play Marines," etc etc.

You know, if you'd tabled him, you would have won regardless of erstwhile kill points.

And yet I took 4 entire turns trying to do exactly that after knowing I would lose otherwise. And all it took for him to pull off a win was to hide a handfull of fire warriors in a place that I was never going to be able to get to in assault. Yay for line of sight. And that's given that I was running 7 fracking squads of drop troops.

Really, it only takes a marginally idiotic player to hide the last 6 or so grunts such where a Guard player cant get to him to preserve over 40% of their kill points.



I swear to God, I'm going to stab the first person to say something along the lines of "Guard players whine too much, I dont see any problem and I play Marines all the time since 5th came out!".

I've won 4/5 Kill Point missions with my IG Mech Drop Guard. 4 of those were tables and phaseouts. gakky luck with killing dice is what really burned you. I mean, Imperial Guard, with new Line of Sight and consolidation rules, will be unstoppable if KPs are awarded on a platoon basis in the new codex.

Well no honking carp.

1 kp per platoon would be ridiculous in the other direction. The idea has been tossed around as a "solution" to the current problem and it used to bother me. That was before I realized just how much "learn to play looser" carp I've tolerated when it was 1kp/squad. Now I just PRAY it turns the other way with the new codex so I can try to provoke the "learn to play looser!" crowd. I fully plan on listening carefully to any counterarguements they have, nodding sagely as if I care about their point, ignoring them, then repeatedly chanting "learn to play looseer!". Then when they make another counter-arguement interrupting them to chant "LEARN TO PLAY LOOOOSER!".

Which is pretty much EXACTLY as things are for me now. >

Just Divide by 2 and call it good.

kill points are completely in SMs favour. Just dont play the mission. My only KP mission I played i got my ass handed to me using my nids, even though i would have won on VPs. Make any sense?

Did I not make myself clear?

Bitching about Kill Points gets you mocked at my LGS. Dramatically. Refusing to play in a tournament where KP are used in almost every scenario gets one drummed out of the local community. Not to mention, laughed at as a "looser that needs to learn to play", a "lamer", "there is no problem with KP - I play Space Marines and I'd know!", etc.

"Just dont play the mission" is GREAT advice if you dont mind having to drive an extra 30 miles to the next-nearest game store on a regular basis.

Really, I've been pushing my luck as best I can trying to explain that KP are silly. Nobody is interested in hearing it. And getting NO understanding. I really cant think how to make it ANY simpler to people. It aint rocket science in the first place. I'm to the point where people really simply arent even remotely interested in seeing sense and/or hearing anything more about it. They play marines, hence they dont care about play balance. Long as it's on their side.

What do I do?

play sm...

Ok have read your post a bit more thoroughly this time (im getting ready for work so im in a bit of a rush). Your lgs doesnt sound like a flgs...at all. And how old are the people who are mocking you? If they play sm build an army that only deals with them. In KP missions that means that you should table them. When I first started I built a tau army specfically designed to annhilate MEQs. By turn 5 all he had was an immobilized landraider, 2 termies and a lone marine. I still had pretty much my whole force. Now thats what i call an annihilation match.

I then play orks and i was tabled on turn 3. But hey, if they only play sm you wont have that problem. Lots of leman russes, chimeras (to protct your near worthless infantry, yet very valuable KPs) and whatever else IG use to down sm.

It is too bad you have a LGS not a FLGS. You should post some of the lists you play against (or approximations if you don't know the exact compositions) in the "Army Lists" forum and solicit advice on how to utterly demolish them.

You can't take two Command Platoons.

BYE

I thought an army was allowed two HQs, is one allowed a platoon and the other is limited to a squad?

See, now, if it's true you can only have one IG HQ... THAT is likely the most interesting thing I'll get from this thread.

So really, why cant one take a second Command Platoon as one's second HQ choice? I just dug through the IG codex and cant see why not. If you ARE only allowed one Command Platoon... well, its the only HQ choice in the IG codex. So what else is an option, without mixing in Daemonhunter/Witchhunter allies?

In my printing of the codex it's pretty clear that you can only have one Command Platoon. It doesn't have anything to do with the FOC. It's just an IG rule. So the only way to get a second HQ choics is to mix some sort of allies into the force.

On the subject of Kill Points, you're right though. They do suck for any army that relies on attrition to win. It happens though. My feeling is that you can either complain about it now or you can wait and see what happens when the new dex comes out. You can't complain about it now though and then act snide about it later when/if we get some uber stupid change to our codex.

I dofully intend to be snide about it if they overkill correct (ala 'ard Boyz) in our new codex. Course I've been traumatized by how nasty the local players have been, what with the whole "I play <someotherdamnedfaction> and it's not a problem, learn to play correctly!".

Anyway, nevermind all that carp.

What printing of the book do you have and what makes you think you can only have one Command Platoon?

I have a very hard time believing I've been playing Guard all this time and havent even begun to realize such. Certainly nobody has "called me on it", including the several times I've played against other IG players. It doesnt even make sense, since there are multiple places in the codex talking about the usual force organization (with 2 HQ, 3 FA, 3 HS, 3 Elite, and all). That doesnt even BEGIN to make sense, given there is only one type of HQ listed in the codex. Admittedly it's a massively flexible HQ type, but still.

Dammit, I'm confused now.

Illeix wrote:I thought an army was allowed two HQs, is one allowed a platoon and the other is limited to a squad?

Armies are allowed to fill two HQ slots, but IG armies are only allowed one command platoon, so the other HQ slot has to be filled with something else (DH, WH, Last Chancer HQ, etc).

I agree with the thread starter that IG do have some issues with the new ruleset...I don't play mine currently in any competitive environment. If you do, though, you have to have a plan to aggressively push in kill point missions. My DE have issues in KP missions, too, but have the ability to move and table opponents. You need to have a method of getting into the enemy's deployment area to finish off all those mostly dead squads. You've already come across one solution...wait for the new codex that is designed for 5th edition.

Otherwise, you need to play according to the KP ruleset and plan you list accordingly. Notice your opponent took all his piranhas in one squad (1 KP) while you spread all your sentinals across 3 squads...you're self inflicting some of the difference yourself.

You've also hamstrung yourself a bit with your army list theme, assuming it drives many of your choices. Do you face a crapload of armor or something? I believe you must only fight Meqs, seeing that you have NO flamers or heavy bolters, but unless you're facing armor hordes all the time, the insane number of lascannons and meltas are probably overkill, and you pay a premium for them, especially the lascannons.

Ivan wrote:
What printing of the book do you have and what makes you think you can only have one Command Platoon?

I have a very hard time believing I've been playing Guard all this time and havent even begun to realize such. Certainly nobody has "called me on it", including the several times I've played against other IG players. It doesnt even make sense, since there are multiple places in the codex talking about the usual force organization (with 2 HQ, 3 FA, 3 HS, 3 Elite, and all). That doesnt even BEGIN to make sense, given there is only one type of HQ listed in the codex. Admittedly it's a massively flexible HQ type, but still.

Look on page 38 under "HQ". You'll see it says "1 Command Platoon", meaning only one can be taken. Look at other unit choices, and you'll usually see 0-1, 2-5, etc.

Interesting, I'll have to keep that in mind.

At any rate, my LGS really is a pretty friendly place. Dont want to give the impression it's a bad store or bad people. I've just been really suprised by the reaction I've got, about kill points. I just get frustrated and worked up on the issue.

Learn to use cover and buy new dice. Everybody has days where you'd swear that the dice gods are conspiring against you. You just cant let it get to you.

The Tau player had Eleven Kill points in a fairly optimized list. Your list is the farthest thing from optimization and appears to have several unneccesary KPs in it not allowed by your codex. This is not a fair comparison. If you wanted his list could hold as many six more killpoints just by breaking units up to fill as many FOC slots as possible. And even more if he budgeted his army to do so.
Which is what it looks like you did with this theme army. You could run 1,500pts with 12-15 KPs.

Off-Topic)Now having said that, yes, KPs are a problem. They're going to remain a problem until everyone with a codex thats 2 years old or older gets a new codex optimized for the current ruleset. So yes I agree with you. I also agree that SOME IG players whine to much and should play SMs. Your second in line for a Codex optimized to the new ruleset. If you want to be first in line Codex wise play SMs. Some of us are going to wait 2-3 years and then only get 2 years of playtime before it all goes down the drain with a new ruleset.HHMMMM 4 1/2 years to 2 years Nahhh theres no Imperium bias.

If I look for things to gripe about I'll find them. So, instead I look for a good game with good friends.


Edited to finish (lost connection) and to help keep thread on track

Personaly, I hope they do not weight 1 platoon =1KP. However, if they did, this might happen...
Gaurdsmen: "Great Idea, Captain, hideing where they can't see us"
(Twig snaps)
Gaurdsman: "What was that?"
(Turns around. Lictor steps out of the woods and kills him)
My Lictors would have their job back.

I think the most reasonable change would be to see an Officers' staff not count for a KP. I don't know if it is "likely" but it certainly be the most reasonable.

Either platoon squad = 1/2 KP or enemy must wipe the entire Platoon to get the points.
I personally favor the last idea better because it promotes the use of full sized platoons instead of the underpowered and undersized mini 2 squad platoons.

Couldn't you, just a thought, build an army with more Armor, Hellhounds, Sentinals, Leman Russes? And for the remainding infantry have them sitting super far back. Essentially have everything as far as possible, use basilisks annoying everyone. Rough Riders to take away attention from the Troops? Use Chimera's to protect them from Armor and wait it out? When opponnents start to get close, just dump them shoot. Add Elites closer to take away attention. I'm not an IG player at all, so just thinking of different things.

At the risk of steering this topic towards 'Proposed Rules' I just can't help but chime in with my 2 cents as well. I think it would be a hard thing to do to fix the KP's for guard. If they make it 1 platoon = 1 KP it would almost swing the pendulum too far the other way (as already suggested in this thread). It may mean larger platoon sizes but at the very least it would mean that platoon squads would be spread out all over the battle field. You would never put units from the same platoon near each other for fear of losing that precious Kill Point to Lictors (good example Crazy_Carnifex) or anything else that can target specific locations well, but cannot span the entire length of the table. I don't like this because it only promotes a more unrealistic way of playing the guard. They could balance it with a minimum platoon distance or something, like all squads must be within 12" of the JO or suffer some kind of penalty. That might even make Vox Castors something to consider.

Meh, I don't know.

Off-topic) What I meant by kill the whole platoon to get to the KPs I meant they're the same KPs as at present but to get to them you have to kill all the squads.
I proposed this in another forum with a mandatory platoon squads deploy within 6"-12" of one another. Platoons do not get to intermingle and should be clearly defined/modeled to represent which platoon they are from.

On-topic) The discussion on KPs should go elsewhere and instead we should be asking if opponent was polite and commenting on how the report was written.

Maybe ask what he's looking to do different in the next game?

What are you going to do about the 2nd HQ?

Later

on this note, the rumors indicate that platoons will have to be near each other to benefit from the ability to shoot through their own units without giving the opponent a cover save.

But I agree, kill points are asinine, they should have just kept victory points. What mathematical genius decided it would be a good system wherein you had to score points to win, but one army can potentially give up 3 times the points of another army. It's idiotic. Victory points worked fine, there was no need to change it and it was a fair system.

As for not taking the small units of guard that deepstrike with special weapons, or heavy weapon squads, you really gut yourself. Tanks are sweet, but the real power of a guard army are those small units that pack a big punch.

If the people you game with tell you to play better, then they are a bunch of big douches for one, and for two, should play you using your army with you using theirs. That should shut them up after they experience how frustrating it is first hand. It is not impossible to win just very, very, very difficult against a good player with a good army.

Well, as I said before, that 1500 list was only a theme army. 2000 points is a lot more popular a format here so I've got some better tuned lists for that.

Usually in those lists I'm running 3 Russes and 3 Hellhounds. But anyway, yeah, time to draw up something better at 1500.

In defense of 5 man Drop Vets with Meltas, it's about the only reliable way I've found in 5th to take out enemy heavy armor. With the new vehicle damage charts it's become extremely frustrating to try to take down enemy tanks, even with massed lascannon fire. Which isnt exactly cheap points-wise. 75 point drop vet meltas (225 for 3) are much more effective in my experience, even if they are almost certain to get killed the turn after they drop.

I really cant think of an elegant way for them to fix KP either. 1 Platoon = 1 KP is just ridiculous, if you've got 54 dead men from a large platoon and 1 guy is hiding and still alive, oh look, 0 kill points. But the current situation is stupid too, same situation only you get at least 6 kp. I think GW has really painted themselves into a corner on this and I hope they dont fix things by simply ignoring it and pretending there isnt a problem.

Kill Points games are heavily stacked against IG with our current codex. My 1850 list (mixed list) has 21 kill points which is usually double what other armies have. Hopefully GW is looking at this seriously.

As people have said, Command Platoons are a "1" choice, you have to have one and only one. 2nd HQ choice is either allies or a SC.