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JohnHwangDD wrote:The way the FOC is constructed (2-6 for Troops, 0-3 for non-Troops), I think it would be *irrational* to assume that the designers intended for players to fill their Heavies & Elites but leave their Troops mostly empty.

The org chart doesn't suggest anything other than what it is.

Two Troops choices isn't much at 1500+ pts, the level at which the designers claim the game is best balanced. If that's not enough and army compositions don't reflect designer intent, then that's the fault of the designers for not putting in appropriate minimums and maximums. Although this hasn't stopped the designers from complaining about "unscrupulous" players. I've defended the designers plenty of times on this forum, but that's the one thing they do that really p*sses me off.

Back on point, I just can't get past them trying to solve org chart issues by changing victory conditions rules. It's like the old joke about hitting someone in the head with a hammer to "relieve" the pain in their aching knees. I realize the designers are backed into a corner with the backwards-compatibility forced down their throat. But this just reeks of compounding one's errors.

I'm all for change in the game, but the change has to make some sense.

Turtle wrote:Please not the "now now, there's no need for discussion on a forum set up exactly for that" argument. This is News and Rumours on Dakka Dakka. This is where grown men use overly harsh language about silly rumours about silly miniatures, causing sensitive people and people who hate thinking and discussion to take them too seriously. Adding to the discourse, positive or negative, is what this place is all about, telling people otherwise defeats the purpose. It's alright though, as you posted some of your opinion anyway. To do likewise, I think just trying to inflate the worth of Troops units like this is incredibly silly.

I'm not really sure where you got any of that from. It would be quite silly to criticise discussion on a discussion board, so I guess we're all lucky I never did that. But that doesn't mean all discussion is worthwhile, you're ignoring the sensible middle ground.

Discussing the possible designer intent of a rule, the likelihood of it coming into play and whether or not you like the sound of the rule seem pretty sensible topics for discussion. But speculating about armies taking nothing but troops and dominating the tournament scene without any consideration for other rumoured changes, changes to the metagame or countless other unknowns is disappearing down the rabbit hole.

I have no idea why you'd think trying to inflate the worth of troops is a bad thing. At present if there was no minimum troop requirement its likely a lot of people wouldn't take any troops at all, and they'd pretty successful because of it. In many of the current codices troops are crappier versions of dedicated shooting and assault units, taken because they have to be. Giving troops a specific niche would largely solve that problem, so trying to make troops worth taking by having them operate as objective holding troops is a good idea... But I still can't agree with the current rumour, that is a poor execution of a good idea.

Personally I consider this thread to be growing into a Dakka classic. We are up to 10 pages of arguments about an unconfirmed rumour about the contents of a book whose release is also an unconcerned rumour!

The sub-argument about whether it should be happening at all is an essential element of its Dakkaness.

This is a wispy rumor, but there have been some fairly shocking rumors that materialized (the loss of legions/daemons, escalation, etc.) so combined with the decent reliability of the source make it pretty big news.

This rumor, combined with the forced march rule, would radically change the nature of the game. This won't just affect tourny gamers, even though the entire hierarchy of power armies will change. Every game of 40k under those rules would be vastly different from the current ones.

Is this bad? I'm not convinced that it is.

It's becoming increasingly clear that GW wants to keep it's veterans either building new armies or radically changing their current ones to keep up. This may upset many gamers, but part of me likes the ides of a dynamic metagame.

sebster wrote:
I'm not really sure where you got any of that from. It would be quite silly to criticise discussion on a discussion board, so I guess we're all lucky I never did that. But that doesn't mean all discussion is worthwhile, you're ignoring the sensible middle ground.

Discussing the possible designer intent of a rule, the likelihood of it coming into play and whether or not you like the sound of the rule seem pretty sensible topics for discussion. But speculating about armies taking nothing but troops and dominating the tournament scene without any consideration for other rumoured changes, changes to the metagame or countless other unknowns is disappearing down the rabbit hole.

I have no idea why you'd think trying to inflate the worth of troops is a bad thing. At present if there was no minimum troop requirement its likely a lot of people wouldn't take any troops at all, and they'd pretty successful because of it. In many of the current codices troops are crappier versions of dedicated shooting and assault units, taken because they have to be. Giving troops a specific niche would largely solve that problem, so trying to make troops worth taking by having them operate as objective holding troops is a good idea... But I still can't agree with the current rumour, that is a poor execution of a good idea.

Obviously you missed me trying to make light of the situation with my language, the internet is a harsh mistress so I'm sorry you missed that. However, I'd like to disagree with you there as that speculation on armies and list composition is exactly what pertains to us as consumers in this game. We know the game will change, we know the codices probably won't, or at least not soon, so how is it not prudent to talk about how this will affect our unit selection or game experience? Whether or not you believe it's worthwhile isn't exactly anything people need to worry about, it's perfectly valid on-topic discussion.

Honestly I've never understood the fixation of 'troops are good and must be taken even though they are bad'. Did some guy with a hardon for weaksauce army lists send out a memo that I missed? Simply put, when people want to spend their time and dollars on a perfectly legal army list, it seems trite to expect them to hamper their lists to personal expectations. What exactly would be the problem with no troops choices at all? Would it not still be possible to have a full, fun game? Playing devil's advocate here, but you need to understand that asserting that all armies should have a surfeit of troop choices is just as arbitrary an assertion, if not moreso, than saying that it doesn't matter.

And I should clarify that I have no problem boosting troops, but this is the most hamfisted, silly way to do things I can imagine. Hurrah broad sweeping rules changes. Why is this a bad thing? Because it negatively affects a lot of armies that are otherwise perfectly viable, and screws with people's abilities to make the armies they'd like to with their money and time. I object simply to having the rules changed to negatively impact certain armies/units as opposed to the game allowing viability for a wide range of armies.

Without knowing the full rules changes, and or missions, how can you say it is hamfisted?

Why wouldn't you base any army list around troops with everything else as support? Armies generally tend to be a mass of "regulars" with support. Without that every one would only bring the very best and elite of the list. Doesn't sound very realistic, or fun.

Really without any playtesting how can we say how it affects any army? I really suspect it isn't as bad as most seem to think it is. Troops should be the backbone of amy army.

I'm crossing my fingers that they will wrote logical and clear LOS rules in the next edition.

Toreador wrote:Doesn't sound very realistic, or fun.

Sir, I hate to beat the proverbial dead horse--well, not really--but realistic? We're talking about a game with Kroot, sir. Kroot.

Toreador wrote:Without knowing the full rules changes, and or missions, how can you say it is hamfisted?

Why wouldn't you base any army list around troops with everything else as support? Armies generally tend to be a mass of "regulars" with support. Without that every one would only bring the very best and elite of the list. Doesn't sound very realistic, or fun.

Really without any playtesting how can we say how it affects any army? I really suspect it isn't as bad as most seem to think it is. Troops should be the backbone of amy army.

Why shouldn't they bring elites?

Covert ops, specialist forces, cults, etc. all vary from the default layout. It's awfully presumptuous for you to say that all the players that like those sorts of forces are having wrong-fun.

It's perfectly realistic too. When the Navy SEALs go on a sensitive mission, there's no requirement that they also have to bring 100 National Guardsmen with them. The CIA didn't bring the entire NYPD with them when they tried to assassinate Castro.

Missions in 40K often rely more on specialists than they do on 'regulars'. For example, Eisenhorn rarely relies on pouring in buckets of Inquisitorial Stormtroopers to get the job done. He relies on his specialists.

I like cool missions, fluff and theme. Arbitrary rules like this kill that.

As expressed its hamfisted. It's hamfisted judging by its interaction with existing rules (e.g. the Codexes that will be carrying over). I'm hoping it's not what its rumored to be. If it is, it'll be pretty bad.

Asmodai wrote:
I like cool missions, fluff and theme. Arbitrary rules like this kill that.

As expressed its hamfisted. It's hamfisted judging by its interaction with existing rules (e.g. the Codexes that will be carrying over). I'm hoping it's not what its rumored to be. If it is, it'll be pretty bad.

I don't really consider it a game rule per se. More a scenario/mission rule. You are never required to go with the sceanrios as listed, in fact you are normally encouraged to come up with your own scenarios/campaigns/tourneys. If you don't like troops only for scoring then just don't run scenarios that use that. As long as people know before hand there shouldn't be any real compaints. Look at the current tourneys, a lot of them change or expand on how victory is calculated rather than stick with the basic standard missions.

Toreador wrote:Why wouldn't you base any army list around troops with everything else as support? Armies generally tend to be a mass of "regulars" with support.

If that's what they want, then the org chart should reflect it. If the org chart isn't working as intended, then you fix the chart. The org chart establishes army compositions before the game is played. Victory conditions rules relate to how one used their army during the game. The two shouldn't be tied so closely together.

What's next, a +1 to hit for Troops when shooting or in CC?

Really without any playtesting how can we say how it affects any army?

I can only hope GW has the answer to that question. I'm not convinced they do or will before the new edition is released. And I'm even more convinced lately that (as a playtester once told me) they just don't understand the mentality of players.

Kilkrazy wrote:The way to get players to use more Troops is to make Troops interesting and worthwhile to use.

And limiting Scoring to Troops makes them interesting and worthwhile to use.

Seriously, every other type has something more special, being better-equipped / faster-moving / harder-hitting. Troops are never going to compete on that basis. And when Troops did (6-man Las/Plas), the game stagnated.

The last "fix" attempt (making Rapid-Fire semi-mobile), didn't go far enough. So now they're addressing the problem head-on by limiting Heavy weapon access in Troops, and changing things so only Troops are Scoring.

gorgon wrote:I just can't get past them trying to solve org chart issues by changing victory conditions rules.

If they change the FOC, probably people would complain more. At least this preserves Codices and armies. All that changes is effectiveness.

Turtle wrote:this is the most hamfisted, silly way to do things I can imagine.

No, it isn't. If GW wanted to go about things in an even more directly ham-fisted way, they could easily change the FOC to actually force players to field more Troops:
1 HQ
0-1 Elite
5-8 Troops
0-2 Fast
0-2 Heavy
Would that have been better, or would there be even more crying?

As it is, armies are still playable as-is. Nobody needs to buy more models or change anything. You can still field your minimum 2 Troops with max 2 HQ, 3 Elites, 3 Fast, 3 Heavy. It's just that GW is no longer going to reward you for doing so.

You also don't have S.E.A.L. armies showing up to battle. You have small teams that have more of a place in a small skirmish level game, than army level. You will always have need of specialists in any force, but the main focus of 40k is armies, and an army is based on troops. By making troops scoring you can do two things. You entice people to take more troops, but not require it. Missions can still be objective based, that don't require scoring troops. Things that specialists can perform (killing HQ, blowing up bunkers, etc.. etc..)

And just because it has fantastic elements to it, doesn't mean that 40k can't have some basis in reality, or even the fluff of the game. Tacticals are most common, Fire Warriors the backbone, Imperial Guard troopers are the mass of their respective armies.

Asmodai wrote:Covert ops, specialist forces, cults, etc. all vary from the default layout.

It's perfectly realistic too. When the Navy SEALs go on a sensitive mission, there's no requirement that they also have to bring 100 National Guardsmen with them. The CIA didn't bring the entire NYPD with them when they tried to assassinate Castro.

Ahh... but when these units go on a mission, do they do so en masse, as an entire Company with full mechanized support against another Company-sized force for a large combat engagement?

What you are describing is a single super-squad of Elites against a massed mooks of Troops.

And what's really nice is that GW actually has a game for precisely that kind of thing. It's called Space Hulk. Or Kill Team. But it isn't 40k.

(Aside, I'd agree it would take a Company of Navy SEALs to have a 50-50 chance to complete such a simple mission - it's not like they're SAS, much less Army Rangers. Hell, I'd put my money on a company of Marines out-performing those SEALs).

Anyhow, when the US goes to war with Special Forces, they're used in a support role. They gather intel, call in airstrikes, etc. They don't do a lot of front-line fighting.

On another note: Is anyone buying that "Hth, always rear armor" thing? Sound very fishy to me and could screw over more people who used to park their vehicles in front of the enemy army. Heck, basic Space Marines can punch a Leman Russ to rubble! (What they should can! HURRRR!)

But seriously, what the hell?

Greets
Schepp himself

The main problem I see with troops in 40k is that they are not good enough at any one thing to be terribly useful in most cases. While I can respect a unit that is pretty good at everything, it does not a good backbone unit make, not enough that it justifies being so common.
Generally armies have backbone units that either 1) do something useful that many are needed for (NOT just holding ground, but actual useful things) or 2) are what is left over after spending all your money on specialized troops. Otherwise, specialized troops are the order of the day.

In otherwords, if the Imperium has basic IG troopers as it's backbone, it is either because they are very useful in and of themselves (eh... lasgun? no) or because it can not afford to give every 2 men a lascannon or even a heavy bolter, let alone a tank.
Now, if the rules want to approximate fluff, and if the Imperium, can't afford to give every trooper a lascannon etc., raise the price of heavy weapons, but let everyone take them.

Another decent fix would be to make anti-tank weapons less effective against troops. But a decision that only certain IG troopers with less than 2 heavy weapons and less than 3 special weapons are allowed to hold a point? That really hurts the versimlitude of the game, for really no good reason.

When it comes to a question of elites, 40k is about skirmishes, not battles. When you have a space marine list at 1000 points that has ~30 models in it, with gear and such, that's a pretty elite group. Maybe more on par with Marine Recon numbers as opposed to SEALs, but still, that's a very small number. Requiring that fights have to be largely between grunts at that level is a little questionable.

I just really think they can do better than that.

But even then, with like say Marine recon, you have standardized troops as opposed to specialists, which just like in a marine list is represented. Tacticals are the most common, and can do a number of tasks, while everything else is specialized.

There are not that many army building systems that this isn't represented.

Just as well allow all HQ.

@JohnHwangDD amen "normal" troops are the one's bearing most of the combat over in the sand like us National Guardsmen

back to the topic, the same would on the battle Field's of 40k I'm not saying just troops should count as scoring units but you need them to hold ground. you could say double VP for troops on the objective. etc. but if you what to field all elite's go ahead you just don't get as many points.

example if you had a hammer (normal troop) vs a sledge hammer (elite) which one would you use to drive a nail?

Schepp himself wrote:On another note: Is anyone buying that "Hth, always rear armor" thing? Sound very fishy to me and could screw over more people who used to park their vehicles in front of the enemy army. Heck, basic Space Marines can punch a Leman Russ to rubble! (What they should can! HURRRR!)

But seriously, what the hell?

To me it says that you need to protect your tanks with infantry when working in close quarters. Which is often cited as being fairly close to reality. Or a fantastical distant future version of reality, with Kroot in it.

If I understand the mechanics correctly, troops in the right position near a tank will mean that assaulting troops can't have a free run at the tank. Perhaps another use for these terrible troops choices everyone finds so unimpressive?

PS. KK is right when he cites many problems arising from the ridiculous save system. Since armour saves became unmodified, finding the weapons to take out 3+ saves has overshadowed too many other considerations when picking your lists. It needs to end.

Schepp himself wrote:On another note: Is anyone buying that "Hth, always rear armor" thing?

Yep, I'm on board with that. It says that Top Armor = Rear Armor, and HtH Troopers are smart enough to go after the weaker armor than the heavier armor when they swarm the vehicle.

@Schepp himself not sure with this one but it makes you think a little more before you tank shock someone now.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
As it is, armies are still playable as-is. Nobody needs to buy more models or change anything.

Under these rumors, it is entirely possible to have an army that is completely incapable of winning regardless of dice rolls or opponent actions.

That is the hallmark of bad game design.

The classic nemesis of armour has been infantry on the hoof. Too many ways to take out an unsupported vehicle.

And jumping to conclusions without the full rules can lead to misinformed statements. Until you know what the rest of the rules or the missions are how can you know if it is bad design or not?
How do we even know what it takes to win a mission or not?

Wehrkind wrote:The main problem I see with troops in 40k is that they are not good enough at any one thing

That's the point, you know. But if you look at regular armies, the average platoon of rifleman isn't particularly good at any one thing, either.

if the Imperium has basic IG troopers as it's backbone, it is either because they are very useful in and of themselves (eh... lasgun? no) or because it can not afford to give every 2 men a lascannon or even a heavy bolter, let alone a tank.

The US has the most expensive military in the world. We don't give every 2 guys a .50, BAR, Mortar, TOW. Hell, we only recently got around to the idea of mechanizing our infantry in Rhinos (Strykers), because we couldn't afford M2 Bradleys, and HMMVs weren't tough enough.

In fact, no standing military in the world has that kind of weapons ratio. That is because most militaries fight with and against ordinary men, and against ordinary men, a rifle is more than adequate. So the real problem with 40k is that there are too many SM. With more Orks and a new Guard, we'll see more light stuff, making Lasguns useful again.

When it comes to a question of elites, 40k is about skirmishes, not battles. When you have a space marine list at 1000 points that has ~30 models in it,

The "standard" game of 40k was 1500 pts back when 3rd Edition came out and is now 1850 pts in the US. With the push towards mechnization, I'd expect 2000 pts to be the new standard. So if your (low) infantry ratio holds, we're talking 60 SM. Tho in a Scoring Troops / Objectives environment with Combat Squads and reduced points for Transprots, 2000 pts of SM would likely have around 80 SM.

But really, you should be using Guard as the example. That would be 100 models at 2000 pts, and Orks would be 100-150 models.

skyth wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
As it is, armies are still playable as-is. Nobody needs to buy more models or change anything.

Under these rumors, it is entirely possible to have an army that is completely incapable of winning regardless of dice rolls or opponent actions.

Prove it. Show me a current-style army that cannot win under these rumors.

You can just point a link to an army list on Dakka if it saves you time.

Toreador wrote:But even then, with like say Marine recon, you have standardized troops as opposed to specialists, which just like in a marine list is represented. Tacticals are the most common, and can do a number of tasks, while everything else is specialized.

There are not that many army building systems that this isn't represented.

Just as well allow all HQ.

The trouble is that every Marine is a rifleman, as they say. Giving each on a squad automatic weapon does not improve their function for the cost since the M16 is quite good at putting down enemies, and the SAW is only marginally better, and in general just is a better way to run out of ammo faster. The difference between a bolter and a heavy bolter is quite significant though. Much more a lasgun and just about anything else.

Now, I really do get that this is a sticky situation. While the best fix might be to re-evaluate troops across the board, making troops a little more focused while jacking the price of heavy weapons up across the board except for heavy support, that would require resetting all the Codex's within a very short time frame.
I am just saying the seemly current decision of making only troops scoring neither makes sense from a fluff standpoint, nor does it really fix the problem elegantly. I wish they would do better.

And yea, if a tank isn't moving faster than people can grab onto it, it is relatively simple for those people to do very bad things to it. They do a decent job modeling the issue of hitting a moving vehicle in HTH already by way of requiring high numbers to hit regardless of skill, but currently don't have a very good method of resolving melee attacks against them.

Actually, a SAW and a Heavy Bolter are very similar in power upgrade from the basic M16 and bolter. The problem is that there is no game mechanic in place for what the SAW does best, and that is suppression. In a way the Heavy bolter does this by being more powerful in stats, buy making people avoid it.

Makes perfect sense from a fluff standpoint, just not in your opinion. In my opinion it supports fluff and helps fix a problem. It may not be the most elegant way, but you have to do it without breaking the Codexes that are out already. And again, we don't know all the rules, or even the mission rules, so how do we know what exact effect this has overall? We are assuming a lot at this point (both sides).

I agree that it would be a VERY lame way to make people take troops over other choices. Infantry only, makes sense in some ways. After all if the goal is to take and hold ground its like a Blitzkreig worked where the Tanks and Mechanized troops cleared the path and pushed into enemy lines while the infantry captured hard points and held the captured territory. Elite infantry can do that better than regular Troops, and moving Heavy Support infantry and artillery onto the high ground after taking it from the other guy is a huge tactical advantage. So I can see why they might be tempted to do this. Still, it doesn't take into account the motivations of many of the races of the 41st Millenium. Tau, Eldar, Necrons, and Dark Eldar don't fight to hold ground. If the objectives are not all the same (assassination, destruction of an objective, rescue) then it won't be a big deal, but if its all about taking objectives like it is in Apocalypse then it will be a bad rule.

I'm not worried yet

JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's the point, you know. But if you look at regular armies, the average platoon of rifleman isn't particularly good at any one thing, either.

No, riflemen are quite good at engaging an enemy at a respectable range with a weapon that is highly capable of disabling all of their non-mechanized opponents. Compare that to a guardsmen with a lasgun. Not only is his weapon ineffective against most of the armor he will ever shoot at since 4+ or better has a 50% or better chance to be stopped, even if it goes through the armor, it has only a 50/50 chance at best of wounding anything tougher than a grot, much less the multitudes of orks, necrons, marines, etc. that have a T4 or better. That's just about as useful as giving all riflemen .22 long plinking rifles today.

The US has the most expensive military in the world. We don't give every 2 guys a .50, BAR, Mortar, TOW. Hell, we only recently got around to the idea of mechanizing our infantry in Rhinos (Strykers), because we couldn't afford M2 Bradleys, and HMMVs weren't tough enough.
...
That is because most militaries fight with and against ordinary men, and against ordinary men, a rifle is more than adequate. So the real problem with 40k is that there are too many SM. With more Orks and a new Guard, we'll see more light stuff, making Lasguns useful again.

Uhm... yes? That was my point, that armies have less than the best on everyone because the best is too expensive for the added benefit. However, a squad automatic weapon does not convey the same advantage over an M16 that a heavy bolter does over a bolter, much less over a lasgun. If the US started habitually fighting armies with armor that stopped M16 fire over 75% of the time, you would see a new weapon being issued right quick.

The "standard" game of 40k was 1500 pts back when 3rd Edition came out and is now 1850 pts in the US. With the push towards mechnization, I'd expect 2000 pts to be the new standard. So if your (low) infantry ratio holds, we're talking 60 SM. Tho in a Scoring Troops / Objectives environment with Combat Squads and reduced points for Transprots, 2000 pts of SM would likely have around 80 SM.

But really, you should be using Guard as the example. That would be 100 models at 2000 pts, and Orks would be 100-150 models.

Which is also my point, that 40k is a skirmish game with larger armies and vehicles shoehorned in over the years. (Creepy how you do that "restate your point as my own but opposing" thing.) It should be obvious that 40k was not meant to be played at huge levels, otherwise we wouldn't have to spend time wondering why a scale tank can only lob a shell as far as highschool kids can kick field goals.

My point is that if they want to make it a large scale (in terms of numbers on the field) game played at 25-30mm scale (in terms of model and terrain size) they are going to have to put more thought into it than "Oh... only troops can hold objectives, so stop taking units that are good at what they do."

JohnHwangDD wrote:

skyth wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
As it is, armies are still playable as-is. Nobody needs to buy more models or change anything.

Under these rumors, it is entirely possible to have an army that is completely incapable of winning regardless of dice rolls or opponent actions.

Prove it. Show me a current-style army that cannot win under these rumors.

You can just point a link to an army list on Dakka if it saves you time.

Dread mob, using only 2 dreads as troops.

Nid list where the only troops are rippers.