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Azoqu wrote:

On the bright side to all this, the guy who loves conscripts in my group ran 150 in a 1500 point game the other day. Even though he won, he said it was too many dice that he'd probably never do it again.

O_O

Pics please.

Azoqu wrote:
On the bright side to all this, the guy who loves conscripts in my group ran 150 in a 1500 point game the other day. Even though he won, he said it was too many dice that he'd probably never do it again.

Yup. I've tried it - it's not fun rolling 100 dice and getting 2 wounds. Also the unit as whole is clunky, slow and extremely annoying to measure rapid fire range and line of sight for 50 models. People can say "FRFSRF in rapid fire range is ridiculous, conscripts do plenty of damage" as much as they want, but as per usual, white-room theorycrafting never works out the way you want it to. If I want to shoot something, some will be in rapid fire range, some won't be in range at all, and some aren't even in LOS. If you value your sanity, do not run more than one blob of conscripts - at least not at 50 men.

Earth127 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
So, Inquisitor Lord Katherine, you base your perception of what is OP and what is not based in how that affect you personally, and only in that metric?

Hmmm....

considering she used actual graphs to back up her statements in the past, that puts her a leg up above all of us.

I can't simulate potential over-powered-ness with monte-carlo simulations, nor can I or all the IG players I know play a statistically significant number of games using conscripts and not using conscripts against a sufficiently large sample of enemies in a controlled fashion to prove anything about conscripts' relative power in a timely manner, so I don't have any graphs for this.

And, since my table looks different from yours, and we all have different takes on terrain and objective placement, I can't simulate the effect Conscripts have on deployment the ease of bringing 50 conscripts into rapid-fire range.

Arandmoor wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Hard to say which is more broken - 3 point modles doubling their offensive output in squads of 50- or 3 point modles being unable to be removed because of 5+ saves and being immune to morale.

Orders. Doubling 50*1/3*1/3*1/3=2 is 4 marines killed, which isn't exactly scary, but...

Orks and Tyranids are also immune to Morale, and have much more dangerous blobs. Boyz can have 6 attacks on the charge [2 base, 1 from the choppa, 1 from having over 20 models, 1 from Warpath, 1 from Ghazskull, according to my Ork-playing friend], Hormagaunts can turn-1 charge with a massive number of hits as well. And that's before we get into expensive blobs, like Necron Warriors, who are basically unkillable in a tit-for-tat exchange of fire, even at close range, and have a leadership so high that battleshock isn't much of a concern for them.

And, fundamentally, even if the commissar effect was removed, the Conscripts are still morale proof, since we can spend 2 CP to not run away.

In rapid fire range they kill 8 marines a turn - they nearly wipe a unit of termagants or hormagaunts. They even beat hormagants in melle per points not even factoring overwatch. you want to continue talking about how conscripits are not OP?

No they don't.

First, it's 7.4 marines a turn, and you got that by assuming 200 shots for the guard via FRFSRF, and not putting the marines into cover. It's literally a best case scenario against a brain-dead marine player.

The moment the marines are in cover, the guard lose half those kills.

Also, you're not taking unit-spread into account. There's no way you're getting a blob of fifty models all into rapid fire range. Not even with a 12" range. It's not physically possible unless your opponent was 4" away, snake-eyes'd his charge, and didn't have any command points left (or spent one and re-rolled another 1).

Finally, @ Inquisitor Lord Katherine, please spend 2 command points to keep your conscripts from breaking. I want you to spend those because you're essentially spending 2/3rds of 1k points worth of command points to keep a conscript squad from breaking. Making you spend those points on that is literally the best thing I can make you spend them on because you've got 2 less points for stratagems, heavy weapon re-rolls, and auto-passing morale saves on much more expensive units.

Of course. I wouldn't spend the two points, because even if I have a lot, they've already done their job and that's two points less to feed to the Volcano Cannon on the Shadowsword. But, by the same token, the only sink for my CPs has been re-rolling the Volcano Cannon's number of shots or Pask's number of shots, and those both happen during the shooting phase, so with the one I spend to re-roll my attempt to seize the initiative, I don't need more than the 6 I get for having a Battalion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:

 Aesthete wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm sure Conscripts aren't as OP as people is is saying they are. But I'm still think they aren't really balanced with other mediocre units of other armies. And I still think the way Commisar interacts with them is just too much.

Can't you just kill the Commissar then?

I can because I always field Vindicares, but thats not the problem. Paying the same to make a 20 men unit inmune to morale that 50 men inmune to morale when morale should be their hardest weakness is the problem. Is a rules problem, not points or tactics one.

That's the problem.

Morale isn't and shouldn't be the hardest weakness of the Conscripts. It never has been, and shouldn't randomly become one. Lord Commissars could attach to them to make them immune to morale, and previously their unit's massive size also effectively proofed them against significant morale effects.

Lack of firepower and unwieldiness are their weaknesses. Orders don't really overcome the firepower problem, since 200 points to kill 4 marines on such an easily damaged platform is a wee bit poor performance, as it were.

It's worth mention that the Orks have the Breakin' 'eads effect, which is almost identical to the Commissars', and Tyranid Synapse creatures are plentiful and powerful, and of course the Tyranid Prime is also a Character and can hide safely behind the 'gaunts.


I don't know why, of the three horde armies there are, our is the only one that should be vulnerable to Morale.

I do think Commissars should be more expensive, because it used to be a 65 point additional tax [on top of the Platoon] on Conscripts that only supported them, and while the price of everything has gone down, Commissars can now service more than one unit, and Conscripts can benefit from basic commissars, not just Lord Commissars.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
I don't know why, of the three horde armies there are, our is the only one that should be vulnerable to Morale.

I do think Commissars should be more expensive, because it used to be a 65 point additional tax [on top of the Platoon] on Conscripts that only supported them, and while the price of everything has gone down, Commissars can now service more than one unit, and Conscripts can benefit from basic commissars, not just Lord Commissars.

Because you pay a point less per model for all your infantry than most equivalent armies, even horde armies. Which would be fine if there were any tradeoff to them. The person who was in charge of the guard portion royally screwed up across the board. Look at scions, guard infantry, conscripts. Your infantry is too cheap for what it does, expect point increases to eventually happen across the board and enjoy being OP for now.

Yea, Guard should useless and not working in this world of monsters and crazy scifi magic elder gods. For them to even kill a single model in my army is a crime enough for the gulag.

SilverAlien wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
I don't know why, of the three horde armies there are, our is the only one that should be vulnerable to Morale.

I do think Commissars should be more expensive, because it used to be a 65 point additional tax [on top of the Platoon] on Conscripts that only supported them, and while the price of everything has gone down, Commissars can now service more than one unit, and Conscripts can benefit from basic commissars, not just Lord Commissars.

Because you pay a point less per model for all your infantry than most equivalent armies, even horde armies. Which would be fine if there were any tradeoff to them. The person who was in charge of the guard portion royally screwed up across the board. Look at scions, guard infantry, conscripts. Your infantry is too cheap for what it does, expect point increases to eventually happen across the board and enjoy being OP for now.

They also screwed up the tanks section, because the tank guns are crap for their points. Pask is good, possibly too good, but that's about where it ends.

I'm missing the OP in basic Infantry Squads, and basic Scions squads, though.

With regards to the infantry costs, though, our Conscripts and guardsmen are also the only basic infantry generally incapable of accomplishing anything meaningful with their own weapons. The point of strength that fleshborers and devourers have, and the assault power that Boyz have, is considerable. Conscripts have toughness, instead of firepower. We pay less because our guys don't have as much offensive ability, which makes sense because resiliency is an easily bypassed trait and a passive trait, while firepower is a trait that's almost never situational.

Boyz have 4 attacks, with an additional 1 from Warpath and 1 from Ghazskull. That's 6 attacks and Strength 4, on a T4 platform, which means that they're about as resilient and considerably more destructive already, 3 and 4 ppm vs. Orks seems fair to me.
Hormagaunts are faster, and have considerably more kill power given that they have 2 attacks and get to re-roll 1's to hit and to wound, and are 5 ppm. Also seems fair, compared to Guardsmen and Conscripts.
Termigaunts are a question because their 4ppm stock version is about as good as conscripts, but their 8ppm upgraded version is only marginally better than guardsmen, and I don't think it's really quite 2 points better than boyz.


1 Boy vs. Marines, optimal conditions, without support: 4 attacks, 3 hits, 1.5 wounds, .5 damage
2 Conscripts vs. Marines, optimal conditions, with support: 8 attacks, 3 hits, 1 wound, 0.3 damage.

Hormagaunts run lower damage, which is offset by their speed and the whole turn-1-charge factor.

Yep. My Infantry Squads are so powerful, when our basic fire arm does diddly 9/10 of the time, making us rely on our special and heavy weapons to do the bulk of the work for us.

SilverAlien wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
I don't know why, of the three horde armies there are, our is the only one that should be vulnerable to Morale.

I do think Commissars should be more expensive, because it used to be a 65 point additional tax [on top of the Platoon] on Conscripts that only supported them, and while the price of everything has gone down, Commissars can now service more than one unit, and Conscripts can benefit from basic commissars, not just Lord Commissars.

Because you pay a point less per model for all your infantry than most equivalent armies, even horde armies. Which would be fine if there were any tradeoff to them. The person who was in charge of the guard portion royally screwed up across the board. Look at scions, guard infantry, conscripts. Your infantry is too cheap for what it does, expect point increases to eventually happen across the board and enjoy being OP for now.

Which equivalent armies are you talking about? Orks and Tyranids (the only other real horde armies) are generally tougher with a melee focus. Base morale was actually reduced for 8th down to 6. Guard infantry were 1ppm more expensive last edition and for the majority of 7th IG wallowed at the bottom of the power curve. SM armies have seen cost reductions pretty much every edition while retaining their unique morale mechanics.

Azoqu wrote:

 Aesthete wrote:
Can't you just kill the Commissar then?

Sadly, not every army has snipers to deal with them. I play chaos and the only way to have snipers (just found this out), is to buy the Forgeworld Imperial Guard book for the R&H list. The unit is marauders I believe, and to buy an entire book to play one unit from a list that is complete trash and doesn't function, is not the way to do this. I wish I was Imperial at times so I could take 2 Vindicares or that I could cast the targeted mortal wound power more than once. If I could cast that power multiple times, than I'd use sorcerers for sniping purposes

I spent pages making this point, and the two answers were the following:

If your army doesn't have a sniper, just charge the Commissar surrounded by the blob. When I said I can't charge through a blob, I was told to deep strike behind it and shoot or charge the Commissar. When I said that I still can't do that because the Commissar is surrounded by the blob, I was told to use snipers...

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Azoqu wrote:

 Aesthete wrote:
Can't you just kill the Commissar then?

Sadly, not every army has snipers to deal with them. I play chaos and the only way to have snipers (just found this out), is to buy the Forgeworld Imperial Guard book for the R&H list. The unit is marauders I believe, and to buy an entire book to play one unit from a list that is complete trash and doesn't function, is not the way to do this. I wish I was Imperial at times so I could take 2 Vindicares or that I could cast the targeted mortal wound power more than once. If I could cast that power multiple times, than I'd use sorcerers for sniping purposes

I spent pages making this point, and the two answers were the following:

If your army doesn't have a sniper, just charge the Commissar surrounded by the blob. When I said I can't charge through a blob, I was told to deep strike behind it and shoot or charge the Commissar. When I said that I still can't do that because the Commissar is surrounded by the blob, I was told to use snipers...

None of those work, that's bad advice.

Shoot the blob! Or just shoot past the blob!

Intervening models don't provide cover anymore, so use that Lascannon Predator and take a potshot at the Leman Russ or Manticore. The blob doesn't actually do anything but get in the way of maneuvers. If you can Fly and have the movement speed, you can jump over it, and if you have the range, you can shoot over it at the things it's trying to protect. Remember that, and focus on the real target: the tanks and artillery.

SilverAlien wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
I don't know why, of the three horde armies there are, our is the only one that should be vulnerable to Morale.

I do think Commissars should be more expensive, because it used to be a 65 point additional tax [on top of the Platoon] on Conscripts that only supported them, and while the price of everything has gone down, Commissars can now service more than one unit, and Conscripts can benefit from basic commissars, not just Lord Commissars.

Because you pay a point less per model for all your infantry than most equivalent armies, even horde armies. Which would be fine if there were any tradeoff to them. The person who was in charge of the guard portion royally screwed up across the board. Look at scions, guard infantry, conscripts. Your infantry is too cheap for what it does, expect point increases to eventually happen across the board and enjoy being OP for now.

Do you know why IG/AM Infantry is so cheap? Because apart from Scions Command Squads, they have terrible guns and accuracy backed up by worse saves. Conscripts have terrible damage output when you get to actual tabletop scenarios. Guardsman lost platoons, so their level of order efficiency went way down and in CC they are only somewhat more effective against most targets than Conscripts. Special weapons are cheap (arguably too cheap on a certain aforementioned unit) because Veterans lost 4+ armour and are only as good as guardsman at CC. Orders have to be tested to see if they go off, unlike Aura Buffs or Ethereal powers. And if you want Orders tests to pass reliably, you need to pay for it.

All that needs to be changed for IG/AM Infantry is for the base cost of a Scions Commamd Squad to go up.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Azoqu wrote:

 Aesthete wrote:
Can't you just kill the Commissar then?

Sadly, not every army has snipers to deal with them. I play chaos and the only way to have snipers (just found this out), is to buy the Forgeworld Imperial Guard book for the R&H list. The unit is marauders I believe, and to buy an entire book to play one unit from a list that is complete trash and doesn't function, is not the way to do this. I wish I was Imperial at times so I could take 2 Vindicares or that I could cast the targeted mortal wound power more than once. If I could cast that power multiple times, than I'd use sorcerers for sniping purposes

I spent pages making this point, and the two answers were the following:

If your army doesn't have a sniper, just charge the Commissar surrounded by the blob. When I said I can't charge through a blob, I was told to deep strike behind it and shoot or charge the Commissar. When I said that I still can't do that because the Commissar is surrounded by the blob, I was told to use snipers...

None of those work, that's bad advice.

Shoot the blob! Or just shoot past the blob!

Intervening models don't provide cover anymore, so use that Lascannon Predator and take a potshot at the Leman Russ or Manticore.

I don't have problems with blobs. Between all my rapid fire weapons and blast weapons or Flamers, I can clear a blob of Conscripts easily enough and still have stuff leftover for blowing up the Russ in the back. I also have a Vindicare for busting the Commissar first, so the Conscripts scatter. But not every army is that lucky. The solutions continuously trot out are great, except for when they are things your army is completely incapable of doing. And that is the problem.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Azoqu wrote:

 Aesthete wrote:
Can't you just kill the Commissar then?

Sadly, not every army has snipers to deal with them. I play chaos and the only way to have snipers (just found this out), is to buy the Forgeworld Imperial Guard book for the R&H list. The unit is marauders I believe, and to buy an entire book to play one unit from a list that is complete trash and doesn't function, is not the way to do this. I wish I was Imperial at times so I could take 2 Vindicares or that I could cast the targeted mortal wound power more than once. If I could cast that power multiple times, than I'd use sorcerers for sniping purposes

I spent pages making this point, and the two answers were the following:

If your army doesn't have a sniper, just charge the Commissar surrounded by the blob. When I said I can't charge through a blob, I was told to deep strike behind it and shoot or charge the Commissar. When I said that I still can't do that because the Commissar is surrounded by the blob, I was told to use snipers...

None of those work, that's bad advice.

Shoot the blob! Or just shoot past the blob!

Intervening models don't provide cover anymore, so use that Lascannon Predator and take a potshot at the Leman Russ or Manticore. The blob doesn't actually do anything but get in the way of maneuvers. If you can Fly and have the movement speed, you can jump over it, and if you have the range, you can shoot over it at the things it's trying to protect. Remember that, and focus on the real target: the tanks and artillery.

Well, charging the blob actually does work if the unit is specifically designed to do that (for example gaunts, boyz built for choppin', or khorne berzerkers). Other than that, yeah, the blob is meant to be a distraction and a speed bump. Trying to kill it first would be playing into its hand and letting it do its job.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Azoqu wrote:

 Aesthete wrote:
Can't you just kill the Commissar then?

Sadly, not every army has snipers to deal with them. I play chaos and the only way to have snipers (just found this out), is to buy the Forgeworld Imperial Guard book for the R&H list. The unit is marauders I believe, and to buy an entire book to play one unit from a list that is complete trash and doesn't function, is not the way to do this. I wish I was Imperial at times so I could take 2 Vindicares or that I could cast the targeted mortal wound power more than once. If I could cast that power multiple times, than I'd use sorcerers for sniping purposes

I spent pages making this point, and the two answers were the following:

If your army doesn't have a sniper, just charge the Commissar surrounded by the blob. When I said I can't charge through a blob, I was told to deep strike behind it and shoot or charge the Commissar. When I said that I still can't do that because the Commissar is surrounded by the blob, I was told to use snipers...

None of those work, that's bad advice.

Shoot the blob! Or just shoot past the blob!

Intervening models don't provide cover anymore, so use that Lascannon Predator and take a potshot at the Leman Russ or Manticore.

I don't have problems with blobs. Between all my rapid fire weapons and blast weapons or Flamers, I can clear a blob of Conscripts easily enough and still have stuff leftover for blowing up the Russ in the back. I also have a Vindicare for busting the Commissar first, so the Conscripts scatter. But not every army is that lucky. The solutions continuously trot out are great, except for when they are things your army is completely incapable of doing. And that is the problem.

I see you are Space Marines.

Try the following approach: bring a thing with 4 Lascannons. Devastators, Laser Predator, your choice. Pretend the conscripts don't exist. Pick out the biggest, scariest thing that's sitting behind the Conscripts, probably Pask, or a Manticore, or a Baneblade-thing, and shoot it. It probably lost half to two-thirds of it's wounds, unless it was a Baneblade-thing, and has now degraded. Repeat until you no longer consider it very dangerous, such as it's Ballistic Skill being reduced to 4+ or 5+.

That's the Space Marines' mistake, I think. You don't have to kill the conscripts, you have to kill their support. We didn't bring conscripts to kill you, we brought them to make it hard for you to kill the things that actually can kill you.


Space Marines cannot and should not beat our numerically superior force in a tit-for-tat gunfight. You can't stand there and shoot us to death, because we're a dedicated shooting army built for the task of winning World War 1. You win by strategically striking and crippling vital targets, causing our army to collapse and be unable to fight effectively. Makes sense?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ross-128 wrote:


Well, charging the blob actually does work if the unit is specifically designed to do that (for example gaunts, boyz built for choppin', or khorne berzerkers). Other than that, yeah, the blob is meant to be a distraction and a speed bump. Trying to kill it first would be playing into its hand and letting it do its job.

Yep. Every round of firepower you put into the blob and not into the things behind it is the blob being with the 200 points we paid for it. Every shot that hits a tank or artillery piece is the blob not being worth 50 points, much less 200.


If you take the initiative, and make the game play to your strengths, our army won't have much of a chance.

 ross-128 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Pain4Pleasure wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Hard to say which is more broken - 3 point modles doubling their offensive output in squads of 50- or 3 point modles being unable to be removed because of 5+ saves and being immune to morale.

Orders. Doubling 50*1/3*1/3*1/3=2 is 4 marines killed, which isn't exactly scary, but...

Orks and Tyranids are also immune to Morale, and have much more dangerous blobs. Boyz can have 6 attacks on the charge [2 base, 1 from the choppa, 1 from having over 20 models, 1 from Warpath, 1 from Ghazskull, according to my Ork-playing friend], Hormagaunts can turn-1 charge with a massive number of hits as well. And that's before we get into expensive blobs, like Necron Warriors, who are basically unkillable in a tit-for-tat exchange of fire, even at close range, and have a leadership so high that battleshock isn't much of a concern for them.

And, fundamentally, even if the commissar effect was removed, the Conscripts are still morale proof, since we can spend 2 CP to not run away.

In rapid fire range they kill 8 marines a turn - they nearly wipe a unit of termagants or hormagaunts. They even beat hormagants in melle per points not even factoring overwatch. you want to continue talking about how conscripits are not OP?

I mean, we have proven if. You refuse to accept it cause it isn't your toy that got better.

This is simple math. Do you really think Conscripts should be able to hold their own in melle vs an equal points value of hormagaunts? because the math says they actaully beat the hormagaunts.

Except for the part where they don't.

Hormagaunts are 5 points per model, but they get 2 attacks instead of 1. So at equal points, the hormagaunts will get slightly more attacks. They're WS4+, so 50% more of those attacks will hit. They also re-roll 1s to hit, further improving their accuracy, and they also re-roll to-wound rolls of 1, helping them convert more of those hits into wounds.

All of those re-rolls on top of the higher base hit rate means that much more of the hormagaunts' attacks will actually get through, so in a melee the hormagaunts will win.

Now, if you want to throw in an officer, a Commissar, and a Priest, you've got to add about 86 points to that comparison.

I think you are forgetting that conscripts have a 5+ save and hormagants have a 6+ save + the overwatch. That is why hormagants lose.

both average about 8 wounds to each other - conscripts win by attrition - assume both are fearless. and Hormagaunts lose their bonus when they fall below 20 models. when you factor overwatch its not even close. Hormagaunts are a dedicated melle unit losing combat to the units they are designed to fight. That alone should tell you how OP they are. do conscripts have pistols?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Azoqu wrote:

 Aesthete wrote:
Can't you just kill the Commissar then?

Sadly, not every army has snipers to deal with them. I play chaos and the only way to have snipers (just found this out), is to buy the Forgeworld Imperial Guard book for the R&H list. The unit is marauders I believe, and to buy an entire book to play one unit from a list that is complete trash and doesn't function, is not the way to do this. I wish I was Imperial at times so I could take 2 Vindicares or that I could cast the targeted mortal wound power more than once. If I could cast that power multiple times, than I'd use sorcerers for sniping purposes

I spent pages making this point, and the two answers were the following:

If your army doesn't have a sniper, just charge the Commissar surrounded by the blob. When I said I can't charge through a blob, I was told to deep strike behind it and shoot or charge the Commissar. When I said that I still can't do that because the Commissar is surrounded by the blob, I was told to use snipers...

None of those work, that's bad advice.

Shoot the blob! Or just shoot past the blob!

Intervening models don't provide cover anymore, so use that Lascannon Predator and take a potshot at the Leman Russ or Manticore.

I don't have problems with blobs. Between all my rapid fire weapons and blast weapons or Flamers, I can clear a blob of Conscripts easily enough and still have stuff leftover for blowing up the Russ in the back. I also have a Vindicare for busting the Commissar first, so the Conscripts scatter. But not every army is that lucky. The solutions continuously trot out are great, except for when they are things your army is completely incapable of doing. And that is the problem.

I see you are Space Marines.

Try the following approach: bring a thing with 4 Lascannons. Devastators, Laser Predator, your choice. Pretend the conscripts don't exist. Pick out the biggest, scariest thing that's sitting behind the Conscripts, probably Pask, or a Manticore, or a Baneblade-thing, and shoot it. It probably lost half to two-thirds of it's wounds, unless it was a Baneblade-thing, and has now degraded. Repeat until you no longer consider it very dangerous, such as it's Ballistic Skill being reduced to 4+ or 5+.

That's the Space Marines' mistake, I think. You don't have to kill the conscripts, you have to kill their support. We didn't bring conscripts to kill you, we brought them to make it hard for you to kill the things that actually can kill you.


Space Marines cannot and should not beat our numerically superior force in a tit-for-tat gunfight. You can't stand there and shoot us to death, because we're a dedicated shooting army built for the task of winning World War 1. You win by strategically striking and crippling vital targets, causing our army to collapse and be unable to fight effectively. Makes sense?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ross-128 wrote:


Well, charging the blob actually does work if the unit is specifically designed to do that (for example gaunts, boyz built for choppin', or khorne berzerkers). Other than that, yeah, the blob is meant to be a distraction and a speed bump. Trying to kill it first would be playing into its hand and letting it do its job.

Yep. Every round of firepower you put into the blob and not into the things behind it is the blob being with the 200 points we paid for it. Every shot that hits a tank or artillery piece is the blob not being worth 50 points, much less 200.


If you take the initiative, and make the game play to your strengths, our army won't have much of a chance.

Ahh yes - pretend the 50 man blob moving up every turn doesn't exist - then when it charges half your army and you don't get to shoot the next turn - I guess that's just getting "outplayed".

No Conscripts do not have pistols. They just have lasguns, they can't even take special or heavy weapons as of the last time I checked.

 Xenomancers wrote:

I think you are forgetting that conscripts have a 5+ save and hormagants have a 6+ save + the overwatch. That is why hormagants lose.

The difference between a 5+ save and a 6+ save is not going to overpower the difference between starting with more attacks, hitting more often, and wounding more often.

The conscripts can only inflict an average of 7 unsaved wounds in melee on the gaunts at full strength. The gaunts at full strength can inflict 18 unsaved wounds on the conscripts thanks to their higher WS and double re-rolls.

In order to get even close to trading evenly the gaunts would have to be reduced below 20 models out of 40, and a single conscript blob is not going to inflict 20 wounds on overwatch.

This difference will be amplified by morale, since they're both rolling against ld5, the guardsmen will be losing 13+1d6 to morale while the gaunts lose 2+1d6. If they're both supported by their anti-morale auras the gaunts still get a boost in the morale phase, because the gaunts get full immunity while one conscript gets blammed.

If you're having problems with conscripts, the blunt truth is youre just bad at the game/have horrible luck with dice..probably the former

 Xenomancers wrote:

I think you are forgetting that conscripts have a 5+ save and hormagants have a 6+ save + the overwatch. That is why hormagants lose.

both average about 8 wounds to each other - conscripts win by attrition - assume both are fearless. and Hormagaunts lose their bonus when they fall below 20 models. when you factor overwatch its not even close. Hormagaunts are a dedicated melle unit losing combat to the units they are designed to fight. That alone should tell you how OP they are. do conscripts have pistols?

Ahh yes - pretend the 50 man blob moving up every turn doesn't exist - then when it charges half your army and you don't get to shoot the next turn - I guess that's just getting "outplayed".

Couple small problems with your math there. Given the scenario you describe, the math should go like this:

30 Hormugants charge 50 Conscripts. We'll be generous and assume that 75% of the Conscripts are in range to get four Overwatch shots thanks to FRFSRF. If we assume perfectly average rolls, we have 150 total shots generating a grand total of 24 hits. 12 will wound, 2 will be saved, 10 Hormugants die. Still not enough to get rid of their units buffs. Hormugants charge and pile-in (6 inch pile-in guarantees everybody can attack) with 40 attacks, 26.66 of which hit and 17.66 of which wound thanks to re-rolls. Slightly more than 12 Conscripts die.

We'll say 36 Conscripts are left, because you can't kill thirds of a Conscript and I like round numbers. That's 36 attacks in theory, but even with the 3 inch pile-in only the first two ranks can attack thanks to the sheer mass of models. We'll say 24 get to attack back, of which 8 hit, four wound, and less than one gets a save. 16 Hormugants remain.

IG player has two options. Fall back and shoot with the Conscripts, wasting an order in the process, or kill 4 Hormugants again in CC by wasting 2 CP. If you Fall Back and shoot, that's 72 shots total. On average 24 hit, 12 wound, 10 Hormugants die, 6 remain.

Do neither of these options, and the Hormugants get 32 attacks total back. On average slightly more than 21 attacks hit generating about 7 wounds. Slightly more than 2 Conscripts pass their saves, so we'll say 29 Conscripts remain. A

So yes, Conscripts do out-perform equivalent points in other horde units in the shooting phase. Once they are locked in CC, they are trash. And even if you give them the orders you need to make them effective, you are not spending those orders and CP on units that have far better damage output. Conscripts are an excerise in opportunity cost for Orders.

Side note: by all means, advance your Conscripts. Let me get into combat with them sooner and with more units, or let them get jumped over and bypassed. Might as well flush the models down the toilet at that point.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

I think you are forgetting that conscripts have a 5+ save and hormagants have a 6+ save + the overwatch. That is why hormagants lose.

both average about 8 wounds to each other - conscripts win by attrition - assume both are fearless. and Hormagaunts lose their bonus when they fall below 20 models. when you factor overwatch its not even close. Hormagaunts are a dedicated melle unit losing combat to the units they are designed to fight. That alone should tell you how OP they are. do conscripts have pistols?

Ahh yes - pretend the 50 man blob moving up every turn doesn't exist - then when it charges half your army and you don't get to shoot the next turn - I guess that's just getting "outplayed".

Couple small problems with your math there. Given the scenario you describe, the math should go like this:

30 Hormugants charge 50 Conscripts. We'll be generous and assume that 75% of the Conscripts are in range to get four Overwatch shots thanks to FRFSRF. If we assume perfectly average rolls, we have 150 total shots generating a grand total of 24 hits. 12 will wound, 2 will be saved, 10 Hormugants die. Still not enough to get rid of their units buffs. Hormugants charge and pile-in (6 inch pile-in guarantees everybody can attack) with 40 attacks, 26.66 of which hit and 17.66 of which wound thanks to re-rolls. Slightly more than 12 Conscripts die.

We'll say 36 Conscripts are left, because you can't kill thirds of a Conscript and I like round numbers. That's 36 attacks in theory, but even with the 3 inch pile-in only the first two ranks can attack thanks to the sheer mass of models. We'll say 24 get to attack back, of which 8 hit, four wound, and less than one gets a save. 16 Hormugants remain.

IG player has two options. Fall back and shoot with the Conscripts, wasting an order in the process, or kill 4 Hormugants again in CC by wasting 2 CP. If you Fall Back and shoot, that's 72 shots total. On average 24 hit, 12 wound, 10 Hormugants die, 6 remain.

Do neither of these options, and the Hormugants get 32 attacks total back. On average slightly more than 21 attacks hit generating about 7 wounds. Slightly more than 2 Conscripts pass their saves, so we'll say 29 Conscripts remain. A

So yes, Conscripts do out-perform equivalent points in other horde units in the shooting phase. Once they are locked in CC, they are trash. And even if you give them the orders you need to make them effective, you are not spending those orders and CP on units that have far better damage output. Conscripts are an excerise in opportunity cost for Orders.

Side note: by all means, advance your Conscripts. Let me get into combat with them sooner and with more units, or let them get jumped over and bypassed. Might as well flush the models down the toilet at that point.

BTW, you can't FRF-SRF overwatch, and Hormagaunt max unit size is 30.

30x Hormagaunts vs. 50x Conscripts are both 150 points.

The 'gaunts can charge the Conscripts on turn 1, and if you're doing it right, they probably should be doing so. That already removes the conscripts first round of shooting.

Also, you can also charge on turn one with a monstrous creature, such as a Trygon or Tyrannocyte that may have come with the 'gaunts, and you will have no problem with overwatch.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Ahh yes - pretend the 50 man blob moving up every turn doesn't exist - then when it charges half your army and you don't get to shoot the next turn - I guess that's just getting "outplayed".

Okay, so stay 18" away from the thing. Or even better, you brought along a rhino with one of your tactical squads, right? Well, have the rhino sit out in the middle of the field, and if the Conscripts are advancing, abandoning their charges, then plow the rhino into them. That stops their advance in its tracks with a object they can't hope to kill, and they won't be charging your front line.

I sort of thought it was kind of obvious I didn't mean to literally go "lalalala... that thing isn't there!" and drive right into it and get locked in combat like it was open board space.

Mesokhornee wrote:
If you're having problems with conscripts, the blunt truth is youre just bad at the game/have horrible luck with dice..probably the former

This. If any nerfs happen to conscripts, I'll be sure to figure out whatever is "pretty good" for every other army and bug email gw until that unit is so overly screwed with its FAQ that they question why their army isn't even decent anymore. Seriously, guard went from near bottom tier to pretty good and people are UPSET? Thing is they wanna change everything. Make conscripts just utter crap, increase points of plasma we take as a whole overall, increase the price of our command squads (scions) until we simply have to "think" if it's even worth taking it. Increase the cost of commissars and lord commissars, change exactly who can receive our orders. If all of this changes guard will go from pretty good back to crap. Do people just WANT guard to be crap?

To the thread - we've had a number of alerts here, remember that Rule #1 is Be Polite! Discuss the argument, not the poster.

Thanks all

 TheNewBlood wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

I think you are forgetting that conscripts have a 5+ save and hormagants have a 6+ save + the overwatch. That is why hormagants lose.

both average about 8 wounds to each other - conscripts win by attrition - assume both are fearless. and Hormagaunts lose their bonus when they fall below 20 models. when you factor overwatch its not even close. Hormagaunts are a dedicated melle unit losing combat to the units they are designed to fight. That alone should tell you how OP they are. do conscripts have pistols?

Ahh yes - pretend the 50 man blob moving up every turn doesn't exist - then when it charges half your army and you don't get to shoot the next turn - I guess that's just getting "outplayed".

Couple small problems with your math there. Given the scenario you describe, the math should go like this:

30 Hormugants charge 50 Conscripts. We'll be generous and assume that 75% of the Conscripts are in range to get four Overwatch shots thanks to FRFSRF. If we assume perfectly average rolls, we have 150 total shots generating a grand total of 24 hits. 12 will wound, 2 will be saved, 10 Hormugants die. Still not enough to get rid of their units buffs. Hormugants charge and pile-in (6 inch pile-in guarantees everybody can attack) with 40 attacks, 26.66 of which hit and 17.66 of which wound thanks to re-rolls. Slightly more than 12 Conscripts die.

We'll say 36 Conscripts are left, because you can't kill thirds of a Conscript and I like round numbers. That's 36 attacks in theory, but even with the 3 inch pile-in only the first two ranks can attack thanks to the sheer mass of models. We'll say 24 get to attack back, of which 8 hit, four wound, and less than one gets a save. 16 Hormugants remain.

IG player has two options. Fall back and shoot with the Conscripts, wasting an order in the process, or kill 4 Hormugants again in CC by wasting 2 CP. If you Fall Back and shoot, that's 72 shots total. On average 24 hit, 12 wound, 10 Hormugants die, 6 remain.

Do neither of these options, and the Hormugants get 32 attacks total back. On average slightly more than 21 attacks hit generating about 7 wounds. Slightly more than 2 Conscripts pass their saves, so we'll say 29 Conscripts remain. A

So yes, Conscripts do out-perform equivalent points in other horde units in the shooting phase. Once they are locked in CC, they are trash. And even if you give them the orders you need to make them effective, you are not spending those orders and CP on units that have far better damage output. Conscripts are an excerise in opportunity cost for Orders.

Side note: by all means, advance your Conscripts. Let me get into combat with them sooner and with more units, or let them get jumped over and bypassed. Might as well flush the models down the toilet at that point.

Hormagaunts reroll 1's to hit and wound if over 20 models. so 40 attacks will give you 20 hits of the 20 that miss about 3-4 will be 1's. so thats 22 hits - 11 will wound - 11 failed to wounds - 2 reroll 1's to wound - 1 additional wound goes through - thats 12 wounds = 8 wounds after 5+ save.

150 point dedicated melle unit without a shooting attack - does 24 points of damage in melle. It lost more points to the overwatch and will lose the battle of attrition vs units it is supposed to be good against. This is UNACCEPTABLE. If you do the math with hormagaunts vs other troop units - I think you will realize that the problem isnt hormagaunts - the problem is the point cost of the conscript. The reality is in this edition if you have a rapid fire weapon and a 5+ save - you should cost a minimum of 5 points.

Well, it's a good thing you aren't GW and deciding points costs and rules. Let's leave it to them to decide whether or not a change will be made. Hopefully not

Pain4Pleasure wrote:

Mesokhornee wrote:
If you're having problems with conscripts, the blunt truth is youre just bad at the game/have horrible luck with dice..probably the former

This. If any nerfs happen to conscripts, I'll be sure to figure out whatever is "pretty good" for every other army and bug email gw until that unit is so overly screwed with its FAQ that they question why their army isn't even decent anymore. Seriously, guard went from near bottom tier to pretty good and people are UPSET? Thing is they wanna change everything. Make conscripts just utter crap, increase points of plasma we take as a whole overall, increase the price of our command squads (scions) until we simply have to "think" if it's even worth taking it. Increase the cost of commissars and lord commissars, change exactly who can receive our orders. If all of this changes guard will go from pretty good back to crap. Do people just WANT guard to be crap?

They went from middle tier to unbeatable overnight. It's like wolf stars all over again - except these have shooting attacks and are EVEN CHEAPER while everything else got MORE EXPENSIVE.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pain4Pleasure wrote:
Well, it's a good thing you aren't GW and deciding points costs and rules. Let's leave it to them to decide whether or not a change will be made. Hopefully not

My points are based in logic and can be backed up with mathematics. These are the things that should determine balance - not emotional cries from people who think their army got shafted in the last edition.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Pain4Pleasure wrote:

Mesokhornee wrote:
If you're having problems with conscripts, the blunt truth is youre just bad at the game/have horrible luck with dice..probably the former

This. If any nerfs happen to conscripts, I'll be sure to figure out whatever is "pretty good" for every other army and bug email gw until that unit is so overly screwed with its FAQ that they question why their army isn't even decent anymore. Seriously, guard went from near bottom tier to pretty good and people are UPSET? Thing is they wanna change everything. Make conscripts just utter crap, increase points of plasma we take as a whole overall, increase the price of our command squads (scions) until we simply have to "think" if it's even worth taking it. Increase the cost of commissars and lord commissars, change exactly who can receive our orders. If all of this changes guard will go from pretty good back to crap. Do people just WANT guard to be crap?

They went from middle tier to unbeatable overnight. It's like wolf stars all over again - except these have shooting attacks and are EVEN CHEAPER while everything else got MORE EXPENSIVE.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pain4Pleasure wrote:
Well, it's a good thing you aren't GW and deciding points costs and rules. Let's leave it to them to decide whether or not a change will be made. Hopefully not

My points are based in logic and can be backed up with mathematics. These are the things that should determine balance - not emotional cries from people who think their army got shafted in the last edition.

Luckily we won't see any changes soon. And when we do I don't expect it'll be super detrimental

Edit:
Also, I've never played guard. I'm getting back into the hobby after a 2 year break and am now going guard. However I kept up with the armies

GW has the power now to change a data sheet whenever they please. It's specifically why they designed the index the way they did. They could literally change the data sheet tomorrow. This is a play-testing phase until codex are released. Expect a price hike on conscripts and or a nerf to their abilities.

 Xenomancers wrote:
GW has the power now to change a data sheet whenever they please. It's specifically why they designed the index the way they did. They could literally change the data sheet tomorrow. This is a play-testing phase until codex are released. Expect a price hike on conscripts and or a nerf to their abilities.

And when it doesn't happen, what are you honesty going to do? Quit? They have NO abilities. Sure they can maybe go to 5 points if that. But the commissar abilities will not change in the way they affect them. I'm sorry. To think otherwise is naive and sad

I'm pretty sure we've already gone over what 5 point conscripts would mean. I'd also like to point out that the only Guard infantry models that got a cost reduction is Guardsmen, from 5 points to 4, and Heavy Weapon Teams, from 15 points to 4. (yes, a HWS used to be 45 points before you added weapons)

Conscripts and Veterans are the same as they were in 7th. I'm pretty sure Conscripts were also 3 points in 5th, though Veterans went from 7 to 6 in 6th edition because they lost krak grenades (which became a 1ppm upgrade, so if you put them back on they were the same price). In 8th, of course, Veterans don't even have the option of taking krak grenades.

However, it sounds like you are in dire need of first-hand experience. How active is your area? Do you think you'd be able to find a reasonably competent player (by which I mean one that can beat you about half the time or more, you'll want someone who can give you a good challenge) who would be willing to do some playtest games with you?

If so, hash out the plan with them, then go to a Wal-mart or equivalent general store and pick up a bunch of plastic army men from the toys section. You should end up with a mix of WWII and Vietnam models, which should be able to reasonably represent most of the IG codex (binoculars guy is an officer, the .50 cal can stand in for heavy bolters or heavy stubbers, the bazooka is a missile launcher, etc.). You may have to use paint to represent more exotic weapons, like painting a rifle blue to represent plasma or a small field gun red to represent a lascannon. Tape them onto round bases to keep them from falling over.

With those, you should be able to build an infantry-based IG list using the assumption that conscripts are 5ppm, infantry are 6ppm, and veterans are 7ppm. Play some games with that army and see how you do. Then play some with the index point values for comparison.

It's very important that you're playing as the IG for that test, not against them, because I don't want you to curb-stomp them and walk away going "Yep, they're perfect now!" You've got to feel the effects first-hand.

 ross-128 wrote:
I'm pretty sure we've already gone over what 5 point conscripts would mean. I'd also like to point out that the only Guard infantry models that got a cost reduction is Guardsmen, from 5 points to 4, and Heavy Weapon Teams, from 15 points to 4. (yes, a HWS used to be 45 points before you added weapons)

Conscripts and Veterans are the same as they were in 7th. I'm pretty sure Conscripts were also 3 points in 5th, though Veterans went from 7 to 6 in 6th edition because they lost krak grenades (which became a 1ppm upgrade, so if you put them back on they were the same price). In 8th, of course, Veterans don't even have the option of taking krak grenades.

However, it sounds like you are in dire need of first-hand experience. How active is your area? Do you think you'd be able to find a reasonably competent player (by which I mean one that can beat you about half the time or more, you'll want someone who can give you a good challenge) who would be willing to do some playtest games with you?

If so, hash out the plan with them, then go to a Wal-mart or equivalent general store and pick up a bunch of plastic army men from the toys section. You should end up with a mix of WWII and Vietnam models, which should be able to reasonably represent most of the IG codex (binoculars guy is an officer, the .50 cal can stand in for heavy bolters or heavy stubbers, the bazooka is a missile launcher, etc.). You may have to use paint to represent more exotic weapons, like painting a rifle blue to represent plasma or a small field gun red to represent a lascannon. Tape them onto round bases to keep them from falling over.

With those, you should be able to build an infantry-based IG list using the assumption that conscripts are 5ppm, infantry are 6ppm, and veterans are 7ppm. Play some games with that army and see how you do. Then play some with the index point values for comparison.

It's very important that you're playing as the IG for that test, not against them, because I don't want you to curb-stomp them and walk away going "Yep, they're perfect now!" You've got to feel the effects first-hand.

Yeah, this is a pretty good point. If you don't actually play a few test games both before and after making point/rule changes, then you don't have anywhere near sufficient data to try to complain to GW about it. Mathhammer means absolutely nothing compared to actual playtesting. Like mentioned in-quote, play as IG, and don't change either list except losing some conscripts if you try raising the cost. If you want to make a real case, remember basic statistics rules like using test/control groups, note rolls that are well above or below average each game, etc. Otherwise, one could easily fudge results just to match their pre-existing opinion. One could even make conscripts seem very weak in this manner(!)

There is no better method to developing effective, impartial rule changes. I'm looking at you, Proposed Rules threads.